


Noah's Ark/take me with you

by crazyphalanges



Category: Feverwake - Victoria Lee
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, One Night Stands, Rock Stars, Self-Indulgent as hell, dara ames and taye are in an indie rock band together, ended up way longer than i thought it would, lehrer is not in this, no beta we die like men, noam and bethany are best friends in college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23471665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyphalanges/pseuds/crazyphalanges
Summary: Dara sits up, but doesn’t get off the bed. Noam knows Dara’s not a relationship person; even if he hadn’t outright told him last night as they pushed through the door to the suite, his hands on either side of Noam’s face and his eyes more sober than they’d been the whole night, it was pretty damn clear to anyone with a hint of observational skill. Dara is not a lover. He is a jagged diamond sculpture that lovers throw themselves against and shatter, and Noam is the next in line.Still, he can’t help but hope, hope, hope that Dara felt even a fraction of what he did last night.Dara’s face turns just enough to glance at Noam out of the corner of his eye. Noam holds his breath, but Dara just turns away, pushing both hands through his hair and muttering a “Fuck” under his breath.“Can you cook?” Dara asks, voice raspy. “Nevermind, that doesn’t matter. Invite me to stay over for breakfast. Now, before I change my mind.”--Dara's the lead singer of the hot new indie-rock band The Fever King, and an alum of Noam's university. Noam gets dragged to a concert, and both of them get in too deep.
Relationships: Noam Álvaro/Dara Shirazi
Comments: 12
Kudos: 84





	1. November

**Author's Note:**

> got the idea while writing the karaoke scene in my previous work for this fandom, decided to write this while watching florence + the machine's interviews for their album high as hope. i also just really like band aus and college aus, and this is both. incredibly self-indulgent. the plot will be nothing spectacular, so don't expect anything fresh or exciting lmao

Late afternoon on Friday of Thanksgiving break, Bethany barges into Noam’s dorm suite with a bright grin and a suggestion on her glossed lips that Noam knows he won’t like. She’s dressed up to go out, which to Bethany means jean shorts, a cute blouse, nice sandals, and light makeup. And, of course, her trademark blonde ponytail bouncing with a little more energy than usual.

“Can’t you knock?” Noam scowls from the couch.

Bethany shuts the door behind her, dodging between a minifridge and a shelf packed with one of his roommate’s video games. Stanford’s a rich private school, but not all their dorms were the most spacious. Bethany twirls into the mini-kitchen, which is just a counter with a stove and an oven maybe four-and-a-half steps from the couch. “Both your roommates are gone for break, Noam.” She pulls a coke from Noam’s fridge. “I have no one to restrain myself for.”

“Basic respect,” Noam rolls his eyes, returning to his laptop. “That door is going to fall apart in the next ten days, mark my words.”

Bethany plops down next to him, taking a long gulp from her coke can. Noam finishes typing a line of code before sighing. “Okay, what is it.”

Bethany grins. “We got plans tonight, that’s what!”

Noam narrows his eyes at her. “I hope you meant _you_ , because _I_ have a double-major and a lot of work to do.”

“Yes, yes, you and your double-major.” Bethany waves her hand dismissively. “I’m a pre-med student, Noam. I know about work. But it’s Thanksgiving break, and a Friday! Live a little!”

Noam looks at her smile, blue eyes bright with a spark that Noam knows means she isn’t going to stop until Noam agrees. Noam groans in defeat. He’s tried fighting back before, but that means facing her puppy-dog eyes, and not even the most evil of her professors could hold up under that. “Alright,” he says, closing his laptop. “What’s got you so excited?”

Bethany shoves two tickets into his face. Noam stares at them blankly, then looks back up at Bethany who’s practically vibrating. “Oh c’mon,” she says. “It’s the band I’ve been telling you about since, like, freshman year. The one that got started here, in Stanford?”

“Ahhhhh.” Noam nods. “Yes. I remember. Um,” he squints at the tickets. “The Fever King?”

She nods vigorously. “They released their first album over summer, and they made it _big_.” She gestures with her hands to convey magnitude. “They’re having one last concert in San Fran before heading on a tour across the nation.”

Noam nods, casting a forlorn glance at all his work spread on the coffee table. Not like he’ll miss it, God no, and not like he’s behind or anything. But he had a schedule, and for once he’d managed to keep to it. “And you couldn’t get any of your other friends why?” He tries one last time. “If they’re so popular, I’m sure others will be clawing for a chance to go.”

“Because you’re my best friend, and it’s my duty to get you off your ass sometime?” Bethany says like Noam’s being stupid. “And plus, most of them already have tickets. Oh, and I don’t have a car, and you do.”

Noam sighs, standing up. “Of course, it’s the car. Shoulda known,” he mutters as he heads for the (short) hallway. “Lemme get ready.”

Bethany practically squeals in delight. She’d met Noam during freshman orientation, and they’d immediately struck it off over the fact that they both grew up in South Carolina, both glad to have someone who doesn’t immediately question their accent. Then they found out they lived in the same dorm building, and shared a few required freshman classes, and the rest is history. 

Noam steps out of his room five minutes later, hair somewhat combed, dressed in his best jeans, a v-neck, and his black-and-red varsity. He swings his car keys around his finger, raising a brow at Bethany. She smiles back and heads out the door, chattering excitedly about the band and the concert all the way until the parking lot, where she breaks off to slide into Noam’s car, a secondhand Prius he’d bought midway through sophomore year.

They get stuck in a typical San Francisco traffic jam as soon as they get into the city, but they’d gone out pretty early so they still had plenty of time before the seven o’clock concert. They make it to the venue—a well known live music bar which, as Bethany informed him, was somewhat of a starting point for the band—with twenty minutes to spare. 

It’s a pretty spacious bar, but even then and with the time buffer, it’s packed when Noam and Bethany enter. “Holy shit,” Noam says, looking at the crowd.

“Of course,” Bethany says. “You don’t often get such a hot new band here, and with ticket prices like that?” 

Noam nods. “Okay, but like, how are we gonna—” Bethany grabs him by the arm and drags him into the crowd. “Well, okay— _hey, watch it!_ —I guess that works.”

Bethany’s a sweet, sweet person. The kindest person Noam’s ever met, by a good margin. She’s also an absolute force. She weaves between the people in front of her, not afraid to apply some elbow when a section is particularly congested, all with her patent smile and patient _excuse me_ ’s and _sorry, coming through_ ’s. 

Soon, they’re standing near the front of the crowd, packed tight on all sides by people holding beer glasses and their phones, buzzing with their excitement. Bethany smiles up at him. “Want me to get us cokes?”

Noam looks around them pointedly, then raises his brows at Bethany. “B, even you can’t get out and back in with drinks in hand.”

She shrugs, but doesn’t try. She pulls out her phone to snap pictures of the venue, and Noam passes the time before the show on his own phone, being careful not to drop it in the bustle. The lights on the stage finally flash on about five minutes past seven, and Bethany casts him an excited smile.

A roar erupts from the crowd as the band walks on to set up their instruments. There’s only three people, whose names Bethany shouts into his ear: Taye on the drums, Ames on bass, and Dara on guitar and vocals. Noam nods, blinking up at the stage. He’d taken an eyeful of a stage light when they flashed on, and his vision is temporarily shot. 

When he finally gets the stars out of his eyes, the band is pretty much done setting up. The lead singer has his back to the crowd, saying something to his band which earns him a laugh from the drummer and a swat on the arm from the bassist. Then he turns around and heads to the microphone, a devilish smile on his lips.

Noam swears he stops breathing.

The screams of the crowd barely register to him; he thinks he’s been struck by another stage light, but this time it sends flares bursting through every vein in Noam’s body. He hadn’t expected him to look this good—he doesn’t think it’s possible to expect beauty like that. The lead singer (Dara, his brain supplies. _Dara._ ) manages to make a tank top and jeans look couture, obsidian eyes catching every angle of light like it’s only natural for stars to live in them.

“Hey, San Francisco.”

Dara steps back and lets the crowd roar their lungs out. He doesn’t scream into the microphone, just talks at a normal volume that quiets the audience with the sheer force of his charisma. And God, was he born with a wealth of _that_.

“We’re The Fever King, and this is our song ‘Fevermad’.” 

He looks to Ames, then Taye, who answer his smirk with their own. He strums the first chord, the other two following seamlessly, letting the first section of instrumentals ring through the venue. Noam realizes with a jolt that he knows the song, has heard it on the radio multiple times before. It’s a good song; he distinctly remembers thinking that to himself before.

And then Dara puts his mouth to the microphone and starts singing, and Noam remembers another thought he had while listening to it before: that the vocalist has a killer voice. 

Because of course, on top of the looks and the confidence, he has to have talent too. He sings into the mic—croons, really, because that’s a crooning voice, smooth on Noam’s skin like what he thinks night would feel like if it was a cloth. And then the chorus hits, and that cool voice spikes into mania, cresting on _don’t touch me, you’ll catch my sickness too_ and coming back down with _I think I’m cracking, going fevermad_.

Noam understands why they’re so popular. Their music has a gravity to it, and Noam is helpless against its momentum. 

Ames gets the last note of the song, and as it fades out the crowd explodes. Noam’s breath leaves him, and once again he finds himself blinking stars out of his eyes as he gazes up at Dara’s victorious figure. Bethany grabs him by the arm, and Noam looks down to her smug grin. He jabs her with his elbow, but a grin of his own finds its way to his face.

The rest of the concert passes by in a rush of drums, pounding bass, and Dara’s damn voice rippling over a frenzied audience. After the last song, Bethany once again tugs Noam through the crowd of people hoping to get a signature and a picture, and soon he’s driving them back to campus. Bethany raves about the concert the whole way, especially about the bassist who, in her words, is “so hot”.

Noam thinks she must be right. But Noam didn’t really look at her much throughout the concert.

They arrive at Bethany’s dorm just past ten—the concert had lasted two hours, the band going through their album and then some rock classics they apparently used to play in that venue a lot before. Or, so Bethany had informed him via screaming in his ear. Noam shakes his head. How long had Bethany been a fan of them?

As they park in the dorm’s lot and walk to the entrance, Bethany’s face gets increasingly sour. Noam grimaces, staring up at the colored lights flashing out the windows of her floor of the building, heavy bass pounding under his feet like a mockery of the earlier night.

“I swear to _God!_ ” Bethany seethes. “I _told_ her not to throw parties without at least telling me first!”

Bethany looks ready to march into the dorm and tear the building down. Noam doesn’t even feel bad for her roommate, the bitch deserves it at this point. And besides, quality entertainment for him. But then a voice comes from their right, halting Bethany in her warpath. “That your roommate’s doing?”

Ames grins at Bethany, walking up to them from the parking lot. Noam sees the exact moment Bethany short-circuits. He swallows down his shock and answers for her, “Yup. She’s…” he glances back up at the building. “She’s a character.”

Ames laughs, eyes going to Bethany’s gaping mouth. “I take it you recognize me.”

“Yeah. Bethany here’s a huge fan.”

Bethany goes pink and punches Noam in the shoulder. Ames laughs again, and Bethany’s blush darkens. “Do I need to worry about any funny business from you two, or are you cool?”

Bethany shakes her head. “W-we’re cool! _Totally_ cool!”

“Great. You mind showing me up? I used to live here, actually, I just wanted to come back for old time’s sake before heading on the road,” she grins, wolfish. “Just my luck there’s a party to crash.”

Noam laughs, half at Ames’ words and half at Bethany’s still red face. Then Ames turns around and shouts at the parking lot, “Hey, you two wusses! I got us some bodyguards, so you can come out now!”

The implication of her words hits Noam the split second before the door to a very, very nice car opens. It’s his turn now to suppress a blush, whispering _holy shit holy shit holy shit_ to himself over his roaring heartbeat. Taye and Dara get out of the car, bundled in coats, Dara just the slightest bit unsteady on his feet while Taye’s straight up stumbling.

Ames sighs, turning to them. “We had a few drinks after the set. Me, being the responsible driver, had the forethought to stay sober.”

Noam swallows against his dry mouth, forcing his gaze away from Dara’s laughing face as he steadies Taye while walking up to them. He can’t believe this is happening—seeing Ames is surreal enough, but he was distracted enough by Bethany’s situation to forget that with Ames comes her band. 

Bethany frowns, finding the courage to speak. “Wait, if you guys stayed behind after your concert, how’d you still make it here the same time as us? We left right after.”

“Well,” Ames smirks. “Let me just say that—”

Taye interrupts her. “She’s crazy!” He slurs. “This woman is insane! Every time I get in a car with her, I think I’m gonna die!”

Ames scowls. But before she can retort, Dara speaks up. “Who are your new friends, Ames?”

Noam’s eyes snap to Dara to find that he’s staring right at him. _Fuck_. 

“Ah, yes yes. These two here were at our set tonight,” she grins, clapping Bethany on the shoulder. “And she—what’s your name?”

“Bethany,” Bethany squeaks.

“Bethany here’s roommate is throwing that sickass party which we are going to crash.”

Taye cheers, but Dara just raises a brow. “I thought we were just checking the old dorm out before going back? I recall you saying that this would be a quick detour.”

“Come on, Dara. Don’t you miss the good ol’ college parties?” Ames nudges him.

Taye cheers again, pumping a fist into the air. Dara gives her a look, then casts assessing glances over Noam and Bethany. Noam feels his eyes like a physical thing on his skin. 

Finally Dara smiles, his expression gaining the easy charm it’d had on stage. “You mean the cheap liquor and messy gyrating?” He smirks. “Can’t say I do.”

Ames gives him an unimpressed stare. Then she gestures to Noam and Bethany and tells them to lead the way. They head up to the party floor, packed with what seems to be the whole dorm building and then some. Strobe lights hooked haphazardly to the ceiling of the hallway and some open dorm rooms are the only light, which is to say that Noam can’t see anything besides bare outlines. At least the band won’t have trouble not getting recognized.

Dara slips away for more booze while Taye joins the “messy gyrating”. Ames decides to go check out her old dorm room first, dragging Bethany along with her who in turn drags Noam with a desperate grasp on his arm and panic in her eyes. 

But in the next half hour or so, it becomes clear she has no reason to fret at all. Ames seems to think Bethany’s the neatest thing in the world, while being either completely oblivious to Bethany’s adoration of her or ignoring it. Noam grabs a solo cup at about the same time he realizes he’s a total third wheel, making some excuse and slipping away right after.

He spends a while wandering around the floor, joining the dancers for a bit before growing annoyed at it. He sips from his cup, punch spiked with vodka that is entirely unappealing to Noam’s taste buds. He keeps drinking. 

He thinks of his wrecked schedule, his unfinished code, his unfinished project on Dutch politics, and then he just thinks about Dutch politics, which in turn makes him think about Dutch colonialism and now he’s mad—he finishes his cup. He frowns at the empty bottom. He really, really hates college parties.

Someone hands him another drink. A familiar crooning voice speaks directly into his ear, “You look like you need another one.”

Noam stares at what he can see of Dara’s face. He’s smiling coyly, raising his own red plastic cup to his lips. Okay. Holy crap. Noam swallows against his rising internal freak out, and forces himself to smile back. “How’d you figure?”

Dara motions that he can’t hear him. Noam repeats what he said louder. “Oh,” Dara says, leaning in. “You looked mad. Something happen?”

Noam’s mind flashes back over his… scattered train of thought. “Um, no. Not really.”

“What?”

“I said no! Not really!”

As he’s repeating, the surrealness of this experience hits Noam full force. Here he is, at a college party in Stanford, shouting over the music at a rising celebrity like they’re old friends. Why had Dara even approached him? And why was he still with him, anyways? Noam’s heart is about to overheat, like the CPU of an old computer in need of repairing.

“You know what? Let’s go somewhere quieter,” Dara says.

Dara starts walking off, fully expecting Noam to follow him. Which he does, still not totally sure if this is real life. Dara leads him into a small, secluded lounge in a corner of the floor Noam’s never been in before, a ways off from the heart of the party and much quieter. He throws a sultry smile over his shoulder at Noam as he opens the door, and Noam gulps as he walks in. There aren’t many people here, but the ones inside are all wrapped around each other in various states of debauchery. 

Suddenly, Noam is entirely sure of why Dara approached him. 

They sit on an unoccupied couch, thankfully away from anyone else. Dara sits really, really close to Noam, his arm stretched out on the back of the couch behind him. In his head, Noam sends a prayer up to God. Dara raises his cup to his lips, smirking like he knows exactly what effect he has on Noam. No, he definitely does. He probably does this a lot, charming strangers with his slow smiles and hooded eyes. He probably only needs one lingering look for them to jump into his bed.

Noam doesn’t know why that sends a pang of disappointment through him. It’s not like he expects to be special or something—he’s not delusional. And if he ends tonight as just another notch on Dara’s bedpost, well, he’ll count that as an accomplishment.

“So,” Dara says, body completely turned towards Noam. “Are you a fan?”

Noam blinks. He hadn’t expected that to be the first question. Actually, given the looks Dara’s been sending him (and oh boy, _that_ was an entire other matter Noam can’t handle thinking about at the moment), he wasn’t sure he’d be getting any questions at all. “Um,” Noam says. “Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but no.”

Dara raises a brow. Noam hurries on, “I mean, I only heard one of your songs before, like, a few hours ago, so. Bethany’s the real fan, she dragged me to your concert.”

Dara hums, nodding. “Are you and Bethany dating?”

“What? No!” Does he think Noam would be here with him if he was? “We’re just friends. God.”

Dara nods again, considering Noam. Then another of those damn smiles spreads across his lips. “Good.”

Noam gulps. He mentally prepares himself for something to happen now, but to his surprise Dara doesn’t make a single move. Strange. Dara doesn’t seem like the type of person who waits, but Noam could’ve just read him wrong. 

Noam takes a gulp of his drink. “I did enjoy your concert though. A lot,” he says, giving a smile to him. “I might really become a fan after tonight.”

“Glad to hear it,” Dara says. “Do you have a favorite song?”

Noam grins. For once, a question with an easy answer. “Oh, yeah. Nabokov’s Revolution, easy.”

Dara’s arm moves off the back of the couch, his body shifting away a bit from Noam’s space. Real surprise paints across his face. “Really? That one’s not very popular with most fans.”

“A real shame,” Noam shakes his head. “I mean, even around here. You’d think Stanford students would read more outside of class.”

“You like Nabokov?”

This launches a discussion on Nabokov’s books, which, Noam finds out, is Dara’s favorite author of all time. Dara’s a different beast away from the stage and the seduction, a real smile and glittering eyes and hands gesticulating wildly to convey his point. Noam’s entranced by the way heat rises high on his sharp cheekbones as they argue motives in _Lolita_ , Dara pushing a hand through his curls whenever he gets really frustrated. 

Noam’s never been able to talk to anyone this easily so soon before. Their conversation shifts from Nabokov to Tolstoy, then it warps seamlessly from topic to topic, never running out of things to talk about or things to disagree on. They talk for a long time, maybe hours, both of them loosening up more and more as the time passes.

Noam finds out a lot about Dara. That he was a literature major, that he almost switched to astronomy, that he writes all the lyrics for their band’s songs. That he’s impossible, and ridiculous, and he giggles in a way that pops balloons inside Noam’s gut. 

“Wait.” Dara furrows his brow at him. “Well, this is embarrassing. I never asked for your name.”

Noam snorts. “Wow, asshole much?”

“Shut up.” Dara swats at him. “What should I call you? Wait no, let me guess.”

Dara scrunches his face up. Noam thinks of bunnies. “Nathan? Nathaniel. Tomas,” he says. “Ezekiel.”

“No. What the hell? Who just randomly guesses _Ezekiel?_ ”

“Agiel. Balberith. Eisheth. Grigori. Danja—”

“Jesus Christ, stop. Why do you even know so many Jewish demons?” Noam shakes his head. “Never mind, don’t answer that. My name’s Noam Álvaro.”

“Álvaro,” Dara says. Noam’s heart skips a beat. “Nice to meet you. I’m Dara Shirazi.”

He grins, sticking out his hand. Noam shakes it with an exasperated smile on his face. After they finish shaking, neither of them let go, letting their intwined hands rest on top of their laps. Dara’s grin softens into a smile, private, his obsidian eyes no longer a cosmos but a new moon swallowing Noam up. He gets the distinct feeling this is something he has no right witnessing.

Dara’s eyes flicker down to Noam’s lips, then back up again. “Álvaro,” he says again, voice soft and thoughtful. “Noam.”

In that moment, Noam can see how this is going to play out. How it will end.

He closes the distance between them, Dara’s lips soft in an almost heartbreaking way. Noam thinks that’s right. Dara is one walking, throbbing heartbreak, and Noam is letting himself fall without a parachute. 

Dara’s hands pull him closer by the back of his neck, and Noam follows.

They end up back at his dorm suite, in his bed, Noam sending silent thanks to the Heavens for his roommates not being home. They spend the night together, pressing each other’s names like prayers into skin, pulsing with a sort of feeling Noam could probably name if he tried, but he doesn’t. Laying in bed afterwards, staring up at his dorm ceiling, Noam thinks he must be scared.

Dara’s still awake besides him, curled on his side and into Noam’s. “Scoot over,” he mumbles. “‘M falling off.”

“Oh, sorry.” Noam turns onto his side, shifting until his back hits the wall through his blanket. 

Dara’s face is maybe two inches away from his, their heads sharing a pillow. Dara’s staring at him, a sliver of moonlight from the window pooling in his eyes and outlining his curls. It’s not the first time Noam’s looked at him and thought he’s beautiful, but it’s different somehow now. Maybe because of the moon. Maybe because he’s laying in between Noam’s sheets, surrounded by Noam’s personal life.

Dara’s still staring at him. Noam can’t make out much of his face, but there’s something so tender about the silver lining his cheeks. Noam gets the feeling, once again, that he’s seeing something he shouldn’t. Perhaps this is Dara’s true face, revealed only on rare nights.

“What?” Noam whispers.

Dara doesn’t answer immediately, just keeps staring. When Noam’s sure he hasn’t heard him, his mouth moves. “Nabokov’s Revolution,” Dara whispers back. “That’s also my favorite song in the album.”

Noam’s lips twitch up. 

Morning comes and Noam wakes to the sound of rustling sheets besides him, and he’s terrified. He keeps his eyes closed shut and his breathing steady, not ready to face Dara without shadows to hide their faces in. He’s certain that the morning light will burn away that pulsing thing between them. Certain that, with the moment passed, they’ll go back to being nothing to each other.

Dara sits up, but doesn’t get off the bed. Noam knows Dara’s not a relationship person; even if he hadn’t outright told him last night as they pushed through the door to the suite, his hands on either side of Noam’s face and his eyes more sober than they’d been the whole night, it was pretty damn clear to anyone with a hint of observational skill. Dara is not a lover. He is a jagged diamond sculpture that lovers throw themselves against and shatter, and Noam is the next in line.

Still, he can’t help but hope, hope, hope that Dara felt even a fraction of what he did last night.

Finally, unable to drag it on any longer, Noam blinks open his eyes against the sun streaming in from the windows. He rolls over, groaning and squinting into his room. His eyes land on Dara’s bare back, brown skin stretched across bony shoulders. 

Dara’s face turns just enough to glance at Noam out of the corner of his eye. Noam holds his breath, but Dara just turns away, pushing both hands through his hair and muttering a “ _Fuck_ ” under his breath.

“Can you cook?” Dara asks, voice raspy. “Nevermind, that doesn’t matter. Invite me to stay over for breakfast. Now, before I change my mind.”

Noam’s heart leaps out of his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you read my previous work, i mentioned that i might write all of this and post it all in one go. yeah, i decided against that, so i posted the first two chapters today. i have around 6k more words written for it already, so i'll probably be posting the next chap tmrw but no promises. im not very sure of the content i have rn
> 
> please kudos and/or comment if you liked! :)


	2. July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 8 months later, during a break in the tour. noam's twenty-first birthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm basing this tour largely off of florence + the machine's tour for their debut album lungs, except that tour lasted three years and this one will be much shorter than that dw. 
> 
> florence + the machine are great and if you want some tunes to listen to i suggest you check out their stuff. on victoria lee's playlist for dara, she has "cosmic love", one of their songs, so check it out if you wanna get to know what was put into this chara ig.

“So, let me get this straight,” Bethany says, across their two-seater table in the dining hall. “You had a one night stand with the lead singer of The Fever King, my favorite band.”

Noam takes a bite out of his bagel, nodding. “Noam.” Bethany’s face is serious, her blue eyes hard. “What date is it today?”

Noam checks his phone. “... December third.”

“You waited half a month.” Bethany takes a deep breath to calm her anger. “ _Half a month_. That party was during Thanksgiving break, Noam. And you decide to tell me only now?”

“... Yes?” Noam swallows down the bite of bagel, giving her a shaky grin.

Bethany looks about ready to burst. Luckily for Noam, she just throws her hands in the air in frustration and attacks her Lucky Charms. By the time she’s gulping down the last bit of milk, she seems to have calmed down enough that she’s able to look at things more objectively. Analytically. 

As her sharp eyes turn to him, now with a tinge of that trademark Glennis Worry in them, Noam wishes she just stuck with the anger. 

“Did… something happen?” She asks, frowning. “You’re not usually this secretive about stuff like this.”

Noam bites his lip. This is exactly why he waited so long to tell her; Bethany is like a people whisperer, too in tune with the emotions of everyone around her for Noam to get anything past her. She’s already noticed he’d been off since that night, but was waiting for him to open up first. He’d cracked after only half a month. 

And Noam isn’t even that private of a person—he’s an introvert, sure, and he doesn’t go out blasting his opinions for the world to hear, but he’s not afraid of vulnerability. Not afraid to give anyone a piece of his mind, either. And he’s safe with Bethany; he knew that before he told her about his parents, Carly, Brennan. This is nothing in comparison.

Still. Noam doesn’t want to let anyone know about that night, and the morning that followed. He wants to keep this memory incubating inside him until it cracks under the heat. So he shakes his head, smiling and teasing Bethany about her worrying tendencies, knowing she doesn’t believe him but that she’ll drop it.

He walks back to his dorm after breakfast, soaking in California’s winter sun. California’s sun never went away, no matter the season, a fact that had baffled him when he first moved here. On the one hand, he’s glad for the mild temperatures and therefore limited wardrobe he needs to spend money on. On the other, he misses his snow, and sometimes even the humidity.

He wonders if it’s snowing wherever Dara is in the country right now. And then he curses himself, because that is so unproductive and so unneeded right now. 

He hasn’t been able to get Dara off his mind since the moment he saw him on stage. He keeps reliving the few hours they’d spent together, arguing back and forth with himself about what happened. About what _could_ happen, from now on.

Because Dara had stayed for breakfast, and Noam had cooked them eggs and bacon. They’d bantered over their food, then Dara used his shower and commented on his cheap shampoo, nose scrunched up in disgust. When he left, he took Noam’s number with a smile and kissed him so sweetly. 

But he never texted.

Noam checked his phone obsessively for a straight week afterwards, but had pretty much given up hope by the start of the third. Since then, he’d been questioning everything he’d assumed before, becoming insecure in his own memory. Had he imagined it all? Had it meant nothing to Dara, the secret smiles and the bickering, the times Noam caught him looking at him like he’s the most confusing thing in the world? 

Maybe he’d been reading too much into it, high on the thrill of having such a beautiful person want him. Maybe Noam is nothing more to Dara than another of his conquests, another stitch on his quilt. 

Noam doesn’t want that. It startles him how much he doesn’t want that, how much he wants to be special to him. But that’s ridiculous; they’d only spent a few hours together after all. They didn’t even know each other, not really. And now here Noam is, getting mad all by himself, worked up over an impossibility like the naive fool he is. 

But he had seen something in Dara, when the glamor fell away and he was just a boy who liked Russian literature and guitars, who poked fun at Noam just as much as Noam poked fun at him. Something that had fascinated Noam, more than his charisma or beauty; he got the sense that Dara’s soul was kindred to him, that they could understand each other.

Noam pushes the door open to his dorm, greeting one of his roommates sitting on the couch studying for an upcoming test they both have. He plops down next to him and pulls his laptop towards him from where he left it on the coffee table. He gets to work, repressing any lingering thoughts of how Dara had sat on this couch with him, eating his eggs. 

Noam shakes his head, gritting his teeth. Professor Swensson’s tests are just as assholish as him, and Noam needs to focus.

* * *

The rest of the year passes without hitch. Okay, not entirely true, because as mentioned before Prof Swensson is an asshole and has it out particularly for Noam, and Stanford is never a walk in the park, especially by junior year. But he survives.

And now it’s summer, and Noam is still in school for courses. His scholarship covers everything entirely (Stanford’s admission office seriously liked his sob story, Noam supposes) and California summers are objectively much more tolerable than the South’s. He only had to dodge the kids coming to campus for camps, and overall he enjoyed the quieter atmosphere.

Noam hadn’t actually gone home since starting college. He had no money for a plane ticket, especially while saving for his car, and there was nothing left for him there anyways. And that was fine, really. He likes the Bay Area, and he likes his classes. And if he wants to realize his goals, then this much work is the bare minimum. 

On July thirtieth, his twenty-first birthday, Noam sits in a small but rowdy pub in—actually, he’s not sure which city, the borders aren’t very clearly defined. It’s probably not Palo Alto though, or at least not the rich part of it. He’s on his third beer, and the novelty of being able to sit at the bar is wearing off. He thinks he’ll head home after this one, maybe stop by a convenience store to buy a six pack on the way.

The song currently playing in the background ends, and Fevermad comes on. Noam winces into his glass. Of course, after months of successfully forgetting Dara, a reminder has to pop up on his birthday when he’s surrounded by alcohol. 

Over the months, the memory of him has faded into just a bitter aftertaste; Noam actually listens to their album pretty regularly and doesn’t think of him when he does, anymore. Though that might just be because he listens while he’s doing homework. Swensson homework. Point is, it doesn’t matter to him anymore—it _can’t_ matter, because it’s done. Like a beautiful song you hear in the grocery store and never find out the name of, the disappointment fades with time.

As he’s almost done with his beer and preparing to leave, someone stumbles into the seat next to his, the only open seat on the bar. Noam glances to the clock. Jesus. Who’s already that drunk at eight thirty? 

“Leo,” says the stranger. “Please, _please_ change the song. Oh, and get me the usual.”

Electricity races down Noam’s spine. No way. No _fucking_ way. The universe cannot be messing with him this much. 

Noam glances out of the corner of his eye, and sure enough Dara Shirazi is sitting in the stool next to him, dressed in expensive clothes messy in a way that tells Noam exactly what he was doing before coming here. And doesn’t _that_ send a jolt of something through him. 

Shit. Why now? Why at all? Silicon Valley is big and dense; if Dara’d stumbled in just five minutes later this wouldn’t have to happen. Fuck.

Dara’s slumped over the bar, his cheek held up by a palm and his eyes focused on his phone screen in his other hand. He looks really good. Like, somehow even better than before. Noam curses himself, this is an incredibly unproductive thought process. 

By the time the bartender’s set down Dara’s drink in front of him, Noam’s gotten over his panic enough to think in words that don’t completely consist of cusses and warbled screaming. Dara has somehow not noticed him yet, which gives him the perfect opportunity to get out. He’ll pay, slip into the crowd, and pretend this never happened.

The song in the background hits the bridge. Noam is suddenly furious, at Dara, himself, at freaking God above. Why the hell should he have to escape? He didn’t do anything wrong. He has no need to feel so awkward; didn’t he say that he’s not mad about it anymore? They’re just two strangers who happen to be sitting in a bar next to each other. That’s all there is to it.

Noam is not a runner, and he never backs down first. 

So he stays in his seat, drinking the last of his beer with just a little more force than usual. Just as he sets his glass down, his phone rings in pocket. He pulls it out and finds Bethany’s contact picture on the screen. He frowns. Bethany usually texts if she wants to talk, and if they’re away from each other and she wants to have a conversation she’ll facetime like she did earlier today to wish him a happy birthday. 

Noam answers the call and puts the phone to his ear. “Bethany? What’s up?”

In his peripherals, he sees Dara’s head snap up at the sound of his voice, sees him blanch and his eyes widen. Well. At least he still remembers Noam. 

Bethany’s giggle filters through the phone. “Noam! Do you—” She breaks off into more giggles. Noam sighs. She’s drunk. “Do you remember my cousin Clara?”

Intensely aware of Dara’s eyes boring into him, Noam puts on his best casual front. “Um, the one who owns a paint supply shop, right?”

“Yup. She wants me to tell you—” Some rustling and shrieking, Clara and Bethany wrestling for the phone. “She wants to tell you nothing!” Clara shouts. “Have a swell night! Oh, and happy birthday!”

With that, the line drops. Noam pulls the phone away, giving it a weirded out look, and then put it back into his pocket. Only when both his arms are settled on the bar does he look at Dara. 

For a few seconds, neither of them says anything. Dara’s face is unreadable, those black eyes that had haunted him for too long an opaque curtain obscuring the boy Noam had known for a night and a morning. Then a Dara Shirazi smile slides onto his face, and Noam is caught between feeling breathless and feeling sick. “It’s your birthday today?”

Noam raises a brow. If Dara’s going with a cool act, then Noam can match him tit-for-tat. “You could hear that?”

Dara shrugs one shoulder. “Good ears,” he says, gesturing to them. “Musician and all, you know.”

Noam nods, giving him a smile of his own. “Hm, cool. And yeah. My twenty-first, actually.”

“Really? That’s big.” Dara’s smile spreads wider. “Let me buy you a drink in celebration.”

Now Noam really does feel sick. He doesn’t even really know why—no, that’s a lie. He knows why, his mind stuck wondering how many others Dara has said that line to with that exact smile. He just doesn’t want to admit that even after all this time, he still can’t stomach the knowledge of how insignificant Noam is. 

Except. Dara remembers his voice, knew him just by two words. Noam clenches down on the hope, reminding himself that Dara’s a musician, and he has _good ears_. 

Noam’s… not sure what to do. He’s confused; he thinks he should leave, save himself from the consequences of his actions. Let his memory of Dara crystallize into something magical but gone, move on and refine his focus on what really matters. 

He also thinks that Dara’s a good lay, and that he can prove once and for all that that’s all Noam cares about too.

“Sure,” he answers, praying he made the right choice.

“Great,” Dara says, beckoning Leo over. “What’ll you have? Another beer?”

Noam pauses. “Whiskey. On the rocks.” He’s going to need to be a lot drunker to deal with this.

Dara nods and gives Leo a look. Noam notices how Dara’s front erodes just a bit when he interacts with Leo, and tells himself he’s not jealous. “You two know each other?” He asks, smiling.

Dara turns back to him. “I’m a regular.”

“You were,” Leo says. “Before going on tour. I haven’t seen you in months.”

Dara waves him off, and Leo smiles. Leo’s handsome; Noam had noticed that when he first sat down. Leo sets Noam’s drink down in front of him and he thanks him, taking a sip. “Did you just get back?” 

“Yeah. The day before yesterday, actually,” Dara says, bringing his glass to his lips. “We’ll only be here for a week before we’re back on the road, though.”

Dara’s words don’t slur, Noam notices with a jolt. He’d seemed so drunk when he sat down next to Noam, but his pronunciation is still prep school crisp. Noam is suddenly self-conscious of his own Southern accent, which annoys him because he likes his accent, so when he speaks next he lets it roll over his tongue just a bit more obviously. “Your tour ain’t over yet?”

“Technically, yes. But the album is still charting and the tour went well, so,” he shrugs, an almost smug smirk on his face. “They added more dates.”

“You’re not very humble, are you?”

“Being humble has nothing to do with being adequately proud, Álvaro.”

Noam loves the sound of his name in Dara’s voice, a voice quickly becoming his favorite. They continue talking, some of that ease from before wrapping around them again, but not all of it. There is a yardstick held rigid between them that stiffens their conversation when it seems they will get too close. Noam isn’t sure which one of them is holding it.

By the time he finishes his drink, he’s feeling buzzed. He’s waiting for Dara to make a move on him; they’re already sitting pretty close by nature of the arrangement of their stools and it would be easy for Dara to reach over and put his hand on his thigh. He’s not sure why he hasn’t yet. He’s not sure what they’re doing right now, talking like old friends catching up. 

They aren’t friends. And with that yardstick, they’re running out of things to catch up on. 

“Want another one?” Dara gestures to his empty glass. When Noam nods, he beckons Leo over.

“I couldn’t make you pay for it,” Noam says. “Even if you’re a rich rockstar now, I still have enough money for a drink.”

Dara pauses, eyes going unreadable again. Then he shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

Noam pays for the drink. At about halfway through it, he begins nursing the thought that Dara was waiting for him to make the first move. Both thoroughly buzzed and thoroughly confused, he decides to fuck it. In a pause in conversation, Noam leans in closer and rests his hand gently on the back of Dara’s neck, brushing his thumb across it. In Noam’s dorm, as they lay half asleep besides each other, Noam had done the same thing and Dara’d purred like a cat.

Now, he jolts so badly a bit of his drink sloshes over the side of his glass. Noam takes his hand off like Dara is a burning stove, moving as far away from him as is possible on his stool. Dara’s eyes are wide with the sort of panic that makes Noam feel like a monster. “Sorry, I—there was so-something on your neck.” He raises his hands up in front of him. “I should’ve just told you. Sorry.”

The lie flows smoothly from his lips, and he hates himself a little. Dara swallows, cheeks reddening, a hand coming up to rub at where Noam touched (He’s scrubbing, a part of Noam thinks. Scrubbing his dirt off). “No, it’s okay. I should’ve—it’s—”

“No.” Noam shakes his head, jaw clenching. “Don’t apologize. This was _my_ fault.”

One of his hands balls into a fist on his lap. Shit. Good going, Álvaro, assuming sexual interest like the fucking douchebags he hates, the douchebags he used to punch in the face at school. He should punch _himself_ in the face, God. What would Carly say if she could see him now? 

Noam finishes his drink in a few painful gulps, the pressure of Dara’s eyes like anvils on him. He stands up as soon as he’s done, sliding his glass across the counter to Leo with a tight smile. He doesn’t look at Dara when he turns that smile in his direction. “I’ve got an assignment to finish. I’ll see you around?”

Noam doesn’t wait for an answer, getting out of the bar on fast feet. Dara watches him go without a word. In the cool night air, Noam stuffs his hands in his hair and scrubs hard. _I’ll see you around?_ What the hell? 

Noam stalks over to his car in the small parking lot out back, shoving his key in without looking and taking off. When he has to slam the brakes at a red light, cars honking behind him, he bangs his hands on the steering wheel and screams _Fuck!_ into the air. This earns him a dirty look from the Asian grandma pushing a stroller on the sidewalk next to him, so he bites his lip against any further curses.

But like. _Fuck_. Dara had looked at him with a fear Noam had seen before, in the eyes of too many girls and guys in his old neighborhood. Noam had always burned at the sight of those eyes; it’s one of the reasons he’s even pursuing his damn polisci major. To get rid of the assholes that put that look there. 

And Dara… Dara, who writes songs in the body of an epidemic, who writes songs about throwing himself at other people just to feel in control—of course he would have those eyes. 

What is Noam doing? Why does being within six feet of this guy make him lose all grip over himself? And what, pray _fucking_ tell, did Dara want from him?

Noam groans, his hands clenched tight around the steering wheel. His life has been a mess since Dara came into it with his stupid guitar and curls and performer’s smile, no matter how hard he’d worked to erase him from his brain the past few months. And it had worked, too. Until tonight.

His goddamn birthday. His _twenty-first_ birthday.

Noam gets back to his suite and opens the door just to slam it shut and walk out again, to the audible confusion of the one roommate doing summer session with him. Because of course, he can’t even stay in his dorm without thinking of Dara in his dorm anymore. God. Two nights. It took _two nights_ for Dara Shirazi to completely take over his life.

Noam gets back in his car and drives around until he’s calmed down, which takes a few hours. Luckily, the Dara thing had also made him stone cold sober, so at least he isn’t ending the night with some office worker harassing him for his insurance. He ends up in the parking lot of a public park in what he thinks is Cupertino, twenty minutes away from Stanford without traffic. The neon green numbers on his dashboard tell him it’s half past eleven, and Noam silently thanks his past self for not signing up for classes on Monday. 

He sits there in the dark, leaning back against his seat, staring straight out at a row of wind-bent trees he can barely make out with the white glow of a streetlamp. With his anger subsided, a numb quiet settles in his bones, static clouding his thoughts. He is so, so tired.

He lets the memories flood back to him. Dara’s face as he pushed his eggs around in his plate, Dara’s laughter at Noam’s expression when Swensson’s name got brought up in conversation, Dara’s closed eyes and scrunched brow the first time Noam heard Nabokov’s Revolution. 

Brennan’s funeral. Mom’s feet, toes dangling half an inch off the ground. He stops himself before his mind can touch Dad or Carly, but the damage is already done. 

In moments like this, too exhausted to tell himself he’s wrong, an old thought resurfaces and echoes in his skull. _I killed everyone I love_.

Maybe it’s a good thing Dara won’t want to see him again after tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for once, the drinking is all legal. and yes, i couldn't resist putting leo in once again.
> 
> please kudos, comment, all that jazz


	3. July Pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voice mail, hangover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why did i use the voice mail trope? cause im a sucker for cliches.
> 
> also, i forgot to mention this before but the reason noam and bethany go to stanford and this is set in the bay area is because i know my way around there and it's just easier for me to write. both settings in this chapter are places im familiar with :)

Noam wakes to sunshine attacking his eyes. He spends a while blinking against it, regaining his vision and wondering why the light is so damn bright this morning. He finds himself with his face level to his steering wheel. 

He jolts upright, looking around to discover that he is still inside his car, parked in the lot of the park he’d driven to last night. He groans, knocking his head back against the headrest of his seat. He doesn’t remember falling asleep here last night, but he does remember not wanting to go back to his dorm. He rubs his hands over his face and cracks his stiff neck, then risks a glance to the clock on his dashboard.

9:06. Okay, not bad—at least before his roommate wakes up on days when he doesn’t have morning classes. Noam yawns, looking out the window to find a few people already in the park. He steps out to stretch his arms and legs before climbing back in and getting ready to drive. But as his hand touches the gearshift, Noam finds that he still really doesn’t want to go back to his dorm. God damn it. 

He slumps forward, forehead pressed against his steering wheel and groans. He’d hoped he could go back to normal after sleeping off the bad taste of the night he had, but it’s becoming apparent that was a flimsy wish at best. Forehead still against the steering wheel, Noam fishes his phone out of his pocket, breathing a sigh of relief when he finds he still has some battery left.

He scrolls through his notifications, looking for anything that will delay driving back. He skims over a few emails, opens Twitter for a second before seeing Trump’s face and closing the app, replies to a text from Bethany, and then he sees a new voice mail from an unknown number. Noam frowns at it. Advertisers never bother to leave voice mail, and he’s pretty sure his doctor or dentist wouldn’t either. Maybe someone got the wrong number?

Curious and still procrastinating on going home, Noam clicks it open and raises the phone to his ear, half-hoping it’s not some cryptic creepy message like in the start of bad horror movies and half-hoping it is, because he likes bad horror movies. 

Instead, Dara’s voice slurs out of the speaker. “You  _ asshole _ ,” he bites.

Noam’s stomach drops and tumbles around his feet. Dara’s voice is so full of spite his skin is burning with it. Noam expected him to want nothing to do with him after last night, but this is so much worse. He doesn’t stop the voice mail though; he’ll suffer for his own actions and pay Dara the respect he deserves. 

“You  _ fucking  _ asshole. I wish I never met you, y’know that?” Dara continues, words blurring against each other. How much had he drank after Noam left? “Wish I never—never saw yer stupid friggin brown eyes or your dorky-ass laugh. I really couldn’t give a shit about the historical- the historarie- the history of anarchism, but you just kept yakkin and it was so cute I—”

The rest of the sentence is unintelligible. Noam blinks in shock. What the fuck is he hearing? He thought Dara would be screaming at him for being a douche, not calling him cute. The whiplash is blinding, and Noam is  _ so confused _ .

“Your eggs suck and you don’t own conditioner—who doesn’t own conditioner?—and it’s so obvious yer not used to drinkin whiskey,” he rants, slur worsening. “And when you—I could tell when we got talkin’ at the bar that you were mad. But you didn’t leave, until you—you—” his voice gets hard and Noam braces himself. 

“Woulja  _ not _ treat me like I’m fuckin made of fuckin glass? I wasn’t gonna apologize, you damn idi—”

The voice mail cuts off and Noam’s ringtone sounds in his ear. He looks at the screen to see the same number that had left the voice mail. He stares at it in shock. What the hell is going on? Half a year of radio silence and then the first time he gets a call it’s a drunk dial of Dara telling him he’s an asshole, and even then not at all for the reasons he thought he’d be calling him an asshole for.

Heart in his throat, Noam answers the call. Dara’s dead silent on the other end, the only proof he’s there at all slight rustling sounds Noam hears every once in a while. They let the seconds pack in thick, tense awkwardness. 

When it becomes clear that Dara has no clue what to say, Noam decides to start for him. “Um…” he says, voice rough with sleep. 

He clears it and tries again. “So… hungover, I’m guessing?”

Noam winces. Well, he thinks it’s safe to say that Dara doesn’t hate him from that message, but he still doesn’t think teasing him first thing is the brightest choice. Dara groans on the other end. “You heard the… the voice mail.”

“Yeah. Most of it, at least.” 

Another stretch of silence. Then Dara mutters, “Great” and then sighs long and hard. “What did I say?”

Of course he wouldn’t remember. Considering how wasted he’d sounded, Noam’s surprised he remembered he made the thing at all. “You mostly insulted me,” Noam says, leaning back in his car seat. 

Dara lets out a breath. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Is that all though? I get the feeling I—well. Said a bit more than that.”

Noam thinks over how he should answer this question. “Uh,” He clears his throat again. “You… said that you weren’t going to apologize, that time. And you called me cute.”

This time, the silence stretches on so long Noam’s sure Dara’s thinking of hanging up on him. Then he hears a muttered curse, a lot of rustling, and then a bunch of cabinet doors opening and banging shut. A louder curse. 

“I didn’t really take you for a cusser,” Noam says. Immediate regret. “Wow, sorry, that was kinda—”

“Stop apologizing,” Dara all but growls.

Noam shuts up. Dara sighs, long and frustrated, and Noam imagines him standing in front of a sink, rubbing his temples with one hand and holding his phone with the other, still in last night’s clothes. 

Before he can do something stupid, like ask if he can come over, Dara finally speaks again. “I’m out of ibuprofen.”

“Oh.” Okay? What?

“I’m at the the hotel in Santana Row.” Dara asks in a rush, as if he’s saying the words before he can lose his nerve. “Can you come bring me some?”

And really, what other answer is there but yes?

It takes fifteen minutes to get to Santana Row, a shopping district (really just one long street) full of the sort of brands Noam couldn’t even think of buying. Thankfully, he always keeps ibuprofen in his glove compartment, so he doesn’t have to stop by a pharmacy on the way. He parks in the garage and walks towards Hotel Valencia, heart hammering in his throat. 

Dara texted him his room number after he hung up, and in the elevator he pushes for the third floor, giving a quick smile to the couple in there with him. Hotel rooms are on top of the stores lining the street, with black-iron fencing around overlooking balconies. The few times Noam had gone to Santana Row (once again at the behest of Bethany), the upper living areas with their pale orange or pink stone walls had always caught his eye.

The elevator reaches his floor, and he takes a deep breath before getting off. He finds Dara’s room quickly, and he takes another deep breath before knocking on the door, rocking back on his heels and glancing at the elegant hallway furnishing as he waits. He’s as nervous as he is before getting tests back, his mind speeding over what he’d do when he goes in.

All of which flies out of his head when Dara opens the door, his hair dripping wet. Noam’s mouth goes dry. In that moment, he totally understands why stylists like the wet-hair look so much in photoshoots. 

“Sorry, I just got out of the shower.” Dara’s hand cards through his curls, and he gives Noam an almost embarrassed smile.

Wait. Dara’s actually flustered? “It’s fine,” he says. “Um, can I…?”

Dara holds the door open for him as he walks in, hands in the pockets of his shorts. It’s smaller inside than he thought it would be, only a queen size bed, a couch, an armchair, and a TV on a cabinet. He’d always pictured Dara surrounded by marble and the minimalistic designs the rich seem to love. 

“Here,” he says, handing over the pill bottle.

“Oh, thank God.” Dara shakes out a couple and swallows them dry. Noam watches the bob of his Adam’s apple, looking away when his head rights again. “Thanks. You’re a real lifesaver.”

They stand in awkward silence for a bit, then Dara gestures to the couch and says, “Sit. Do you want something to drink?”

Noam shakes his head. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”

Dara nods and then goes to sit next to Noam. Unlike the other time they sat on a couch together, there’s a good amount of space between them, at least as much as the sofa allows. Dara clears his throat. “You caught me a bit by surprise. Doesn’t it take longer to drive from Stanford to here?”

“I wasn’t at Stanford when you called, I was in Cupertino,” Noam answers. So was that why he seemed flustered? Because Noam had caught him off guard?

He doesn’t look very caught off guard; in fact, Noam had never seen someone hungover so impeccably dressed. But that’s Dara for you, always so put together.

“At nine o’clock in the morning?” Dara asks. “What were you doing there?”

_ Trying to stop thinking about you _ . “Oh, you know. There’s a cafe I like there.”

“Enough for you to drive all the way there on a Monday morning?” 

“Hey, it’s good coffee, alright?” Noam frowns, defensive as his lies are getting called out. “And I don’t wanna hear that from you. Your one week away from touring, and you’re spending it in a hotel above Santana Row. Where are your bandmates, anyways?”

Dara crosses his legs, waving a hand dismissively. “Ames is in San Francisco, and Taye’s who knows where,” he says, gesturing in the air. “This is as much a break from each other as a break from the tour. We’re all getting sick of each other’s faces.”

That startles a laugh out of Noam, and Dara looks at him like he’s never heard the sound before. That look sends tingles across his skin, and he wonders if maybe he really did catch him off guard, no time to construct his perfect facade. 

Noam’s laugh dies out, and the awkward tension from before returns. Their time for small talk has died out, and the elephant in the room is staring both of them straight in their faces. He clears his throat, deciding to rip the bandaid off. “So…” 

He trails off. Dara bites his lip, looking away from Noam and at the small circular coffee table in front of them, his posture perfect and hands clenched tight in his lap.

“Why’d you never call?”

Dara’s head snaps to him. Noam doesn’t know what he’d been planning on saying when he broke the silence, but  _ that  _ is definitely not it. There was just something so vulnerable about Dara as his wet hair shifted over his eyes, his shoulder stiff like he was waiting for a blade to drop. Noam doesn’t want to be the executioner, doesn’t want blood anywhere near this room.

But it’s becoming clearer and clearer that with them, blood is inevitable.

Dara’s lips part, his eyes frozen on Noam’s face. Noam meets his gaze warily, not knowing what answer he’s expecting but knowing it’s not going to be good. Dara’s eyes shift down, landing somewhere near Noam’s knees.

He thinks he’s going to deflect, make some flimsy excuse plucked straight from the guidebook on how to avoid tense situations, and then Noam would have to leave because he’d feel like throwing up. This might be it, he thinks. The last seconds of a pilot episode that would never become a show.

But when Dara finally opens his mouth, he’s sincere. “I wanted to,” he says, eyes looking back up at Noam’s. “Believe me I wanted to, Noam.”

Dara’s eyes are pleading, beseeching, a look Noam’s worn before while trying to talk to his father those years after his mother’s death. “Then why didn’t you?” Noam’s voice is caught somewhere between timid and forceful.

Dara wets his lips. “I couldn’t.”

He offers nothing more. Noam is left staring at him. “You  _ couldn’t? _ ” he asks, incredulous. “What does that mean?”

“It means I  _ couldn’t _ .” Dara’s eyes harden, his voice gaining edge. “It means I didn’t know what to do, Noam. None of this—none of this was supposed to happen.”

“None of  _ what? _ ” Noam leans forward, as if being closer would urge Dara to stop being so fucking cryptic. “You’re not making any sense, Dara.”

Dara stares at him, then releases a breathy laugh and shakes his head. He pushes a hand through his hair, and a stray fleck of water lands on Noam’s face. “You’re the one who doesn’t make any sense.”

“What? Dara, what do you —”

All of a sudden, Dara’s hands are fisted in his shirt collar and tugging, and then Dara’s lips are on his. The kiss is searing, burning with frustration and anger and a desperation so thick Noam can taste it, remembering how he’d looked earlier, his eyes begging Noam to understand. 

And then just as quickly, Dara breaks away, panting slightly and hands still gripping Noam’s collar. “Did that make sense to you?” Dara asks, brows tight.

“No. Yes,” Noam’s own brows scrunch up. “No. Dara, what the fuck?”

Dara’s mouth slams into him again, and for a second Noam almost gives in to the sensation of his soft lips moving furiously against his. It’s been so long since he’s touched anyone in this way, and Dara is a hurricane crashing into his famine-weakened city. But somehow, he manages to shake the urge off and break away. 

“Stop,” he says. “Dara, we should talk this out.”

“Well, I happen to think fucking is a perfectly good form of communication.” Dara’s lips curl up into a smirk.

Noam shakes his head in disbelief. He’s deflecting now, Noam can tell. Dara doesn’t kiss him again, but doesn’t move away either; eventually his hands let go of Noam’s shirt. “Maybe,” Noam says. “But not for us.”

“Us?” 

Noam swallows down the sudden anxiety at the tone of Dara’s voice. “Yes,  _ us _ . You can’t convince me I was just a one night stand, Dara, not after—” he gestures wildly in the air. “You know. Everything.”

Dara doesn’t say anything. He watches Noam with an emotion he can’t name but makes him ache inside. 

“Dara,” he says, voice quieter but firm. “I like you. A lot. I want—I  _ need  _ you to know that before you decide to do anything else.”

Dara looks surprised for a moment, caught off guard, the red rush of anger on his cheeks thawing into something sweeter. Then he lets out a laugh, his black eyes wide as they stare into Noam’s. His hands come up to cup his cheeks, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. “Idiot,” he murmurs, pulling Noam in. “I knew that already.”

* * *

Afterwards, and after Noam borrows Dara’s shower (which is really nice. Noam hadn’t been in many hotels, but he remembers the showers are always really nice), he walks into the room to find Dara on the balcony. For a second, he just looks at his figure in the silk pajamas he’d changed into, leaning against the railing and lit by the sun. Then he slides the balcony door open and settles his elbows on the railing besides him.

“Jesus, it’s hot,” he says. “And loud. What the heck’s so good about this hotel?”

“It’s a nice view.” Dara smiles up at him. “And the little kids always stare up at you like you’re a celebrity.”

“You  _ are  _ a celebrity.”

“Besides the point, Álvaro.”

Noam chuckles, looking out at the street below him. Sure enough, he catches the eye of a little girl who looks at him in wonder, her hand in the grasp of her mother’s. They lapse into a comfortable silence as Noam’s hair sun-dries.

“Do you have any classes today?” Dara asks, looking at him. 

He shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Good,” Dara says. “Spend the day with me.”

Noam’s heart skips a beat. “Sure,” he grins. “Breakfast?”

Dara smiles back, the sunlight making his face glow. Noam wonders how he had spent the last eight months without this. 

For the next week, Noam spends every moment not in class in Dara’s hotel room, squeezing in every second they’d lost into the remaining days before he has to leave again. They pass the time in a blissful haze, entangled around each other, spending hours talking into the night. 

But for all their talking, they never discuss what happened at the beginning of the week. Noam still has no clue where he stands, or what they are, and sometimes when he’s laying in bed with him he’ll remember how Dara’d said that he’s not a relationship person all those months ago. Noam is very much a relationship person, and he knows they’ll have to talk about this if they’re going to keep being together. Whatever _that_ means to Dara. 

For now though, in what little time they have each other, he’ll take what he can get. He’s learned a lot about Dara in their time together; he knows he’s not comfortable being vulnerable, and even if Noam pushes he’ll be met with nothing but his defenses. So he doesn’t push, just quietly observes and soaks up any information he can get on him with eagerness. 

He learns that Dara moved to California in elementary school when his dad’s brother died, and that he’s best friends with Ames, and that they both began learning classical music at the same time and secretly picked up the bass and guitar at Ames’ suggestion when they were twelve. He learns that the band got signed at the end of their senior year, and that Dara’s a dog person despite acting like a cat, something Noam finds endlessly amusing. 

For example, on Thursday evening of that week as Noam sits in the bed and does his homework, Dara sits curled into his side with his head on his shoulder. He’s scrolling through the responses on one of his tweets while listening to music (Dara constantly has his headphones on), only moving when Noam has to shift to grab something and then setting his head back down.

After a while, Dara shuts his phone off and closes his eyes, and when Noam looks down his face is completely relaxed. He smiles, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his head. But before he can go back to his work, Dara says with his eyes still closed, “Hey, Noam.”

Noam jolts, and Dara opens his eyes to send him an irritated look. He gives him a sheepish smile; he’d thought Dara was asleep. And besides, he almost never calls him by his first name. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Dara removes his headphones, sitting up from his lean but still with his arm pressed against Noam’s. Dara gets cold easily, so Noam is always finding him on the balcony with a book or his acoustic guitar, and during the evenings he’ll leech off Noam’s body heat. Like a cat.

“Your name is Jewish, right?” He asks.

“Yeah.” Noam nods. Dara’s eyes are thoughtful, like he’s in the middle of a long conversation with himself. “My mom picked it out.”

“Mmm,” he hums. “You know, my adoptive father was Jewish. He didn’t really practice though, and he never had me learn about it much.”

Another thing Noam had picked up on: in the rare times Dara speaks about his dad, he never addresses him directly as his father, always with an adoptive tagged on or just as his guardian. The fact had concerned Noam when he first realized it, but he’s trying not to be nosy. 

Noam doesn’t know what to say back to that; Dara’s tone didn’t really invite conversation. He got the impression Dara is still talking to himself and not really with Noam.

“What does ‘Noam’ mean?” he says after a while. “Is it a derivative of Noah?”

“No, that would be Noach. Noam means pleasantness, tenderness.” Noam chuckles at Dara’s suspicious look. “Yeah, I know. Mom didn’t really hit the mark there. Well, she named me after Noam Chomsky though, the—”

“Father of modern linguistics.” He quirks a smile up at him.

“Yup. That one.”

They lapse into silence again, but Dara doesn’t take his eyes away from Noam’s face. He still has that thoughtful look, and Noam wonders if this is what he’d been thinking so long about. His name. The thought swells a warmth up in him.

“I always liked the name Noah,” Dara says eventually. “I like biblical names in general.”

“Why?”

A soft smile settles on Dara’s lips. “I like the thought of parents naming their children after figures they worship. It’s quite ambitious.”

Noam gets the feeling Dara was thinking of a word other than ‘ambitious’. Once again, he wonders just exactly what the relationship between him and his adoptive father is. “I guess so,” he says. “Never really thought of it like that before.”

“I think you’d suit the name Noah.” Dara looks at him dead in the eyes when he says this, and Noam’s heart begins to race. Then he breaks out in a playful grin. “At least better than  _ pleasantness _ .”

“Oh, shut up.”

“See?” He gestures to him. “My point exactly.”

Noam shoves him away, and Dara falls onto the sheets giggling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this thing probs isn't gonna be too too long, like maybe two or three more chapters.


	4. October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On tour take two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bear with me, guys. this chapter's more transitional than anything, and then we're heading into the home stretch. might post both those chapters simultaneously either tomorrow or the day after
> 
> EDIT: okay yeah nope. it's going up tmrw, one day late lmao

On Bethany’s twenty-first birthday, her roommate surprises her with a party, to which Bethany mutters to Noam, “Typical.”

It’s a nice party though, without spiked punch and over-exhausted college students humping each other. Instead, there’s cake and alcohol Bethany was dragged to the store by her friends so that she could buy. A lot of people show up, a lot of whom Noam has never met before, but that just goes to show how beloved she was by practically everyone who met her. 

By the time eleven o’clock rolls around and most people are tipsy, someone proposes a drinking game which devolves into multiple drinking games happening at the same time, and then the party starts looking more “typical” of her roommate’s. Bethany excuses herself to loud but unforceful complaints and drags Noam out with her along with two bottles of beer. They sip on them as they walk on the path Noam usually runs in the morning, cobblestone or dirt beneath their shoes and redwood boughs above their heads.

“So,” Bethany says. “Is it time for my gift yet?”

Noam grins down at her. It’s been a tradition between the two of them to only give their gifts right before the day ends since their freshman year, when both of them had only found out it was their birthdays well into the day. “You sure you’re ready for it? Imma tell ya, I think I really outdid myself this year.”

She rolls her eyes. “Considering your past gifts, not that hard to do, Noam.”

“Okay then, so I guess you don’t want me to give it to you right now?”

“Do not play that tactic with me, Noam Álvaro.” She waggles a finger in her face. “Now hand it over.”

He laughs, pulling his phone out of his pocket and sending a text message. Nothing happens for about thirty seconds, and just as Bethany opens her mouth to ask him what he’s doing, her phone buzzes. He gives her a grin, raising his eyebrows and looking at the device in her hand. She narrows his eyes at him and opens it up. And then her eyes pop open so wide it seems like they’ll fall out.

She looks up at Noam, mouth moving but no sound coming out, pointing rapidly between him and her phone. He smiles and claps her on the back. “Happy birthday, B.”

“Holy _shit!_ ” Noam almost winces. Swear words on Bethany’s tongue sound so wrong. “How did you get Ames to text me?!”

He shrugs. “Dara told me she’d been asking after you, and so I got the idea to get her to text you as my present. Pretty simple, actually.”

Immediately, her eyes narrow. Noam sighs internally; he knew this is going to be the difficult part since he first made the plan. “Wait, how are you…” Her eyes widen again and she gasps. “Oh my god. _You’re_ the secret boyfriend.”

Noam stares. That is not exactly the reaction he expected. “The what?”

“Dara’s secret boyfriend! The whole fanbase is, like, on fire about it right now!” She bounces, excitement lighting up her eyes. “Here, lemme pull up the clip.”

She fumbles with her phone, absolute glee on her face. Noam blinks, overwhelmed by this new development. It’s been three months since The Fever King began the second leg of their tour, and in that time he and Dara had been keeping up a steady correspondence, texting or facetiming every day. But still… “Dara said he has a boyfriend?” Noam frowns.

“Well, no,” Bethany says. “Taye said it during an insta live—here.”

Bethany presses play on a YouTube clip of the live. Taye and Ames sit in the lounge of a hotel suite, dressed in loose weekend clothes. Bethany skips to about three quarters into the video, and Noam almost asks her how many times she’s watched it to know exactly where to go, but then she presses play and his focus is entirely on the screen. 

“Okay, this next one is from…” Taye squints at his phone. “ _Electricheir317_. Cool username!”

Ames leans over to read the question. “Who among the band is the most promiscuous?” She lets out a laugh. “Wow, that’s direct. Are we allowed to answer this?”

“We’re a pretty explicit band, it’s probably fine?” Taye shrugs. “Also, _Electricheir317_ , I love that you used the word promiscuous.”

Ames leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hand. “Well I guess it isn’t really a secret, considering he writes lyrics about sex.” She smirks at the phone camera. “It’s Dara. Like, no question. But if I see anyone slut-shaming him I will find you and beat you up myself, so don’t even think about it.”

Bethany grins up at him. “Okay, here it comes.”

Noam’s lips press tighter together, gulping. On screen, Taye leans back and crosses his arms, a playful smirk on his face. “Well, Dara hasn’t really been… doing much of _that_ lately.”

Ames sends him a warning look. “... We are on tour. There’s not much time for getting out at all.”

“Yeah, that too, but.” His smirk turns into a grin. “Since he started hanging with that guy—”

Ames stomps on his foot and the rest of his sentence is cut off with a yelp of pain. He glares at her, but she glares back harder. “Are you crazy? This is live!” She hisses. “Dara’s gonna kill you once he sees this.”

Taye blanches. “Oh, shit.”

“You _dumbass_ ,” Ames groans, burying her face in her hands.

Bethany pauses the video and closes her phone, sending a shit-eating grin up at Noam. He avoids her eyes. “So? Does that ring any bells?”

He gulps, blood rushing to his cheeks. He scratches the back of his head, searching desperately for a way out. “Uh… d-don’t you have to text Ames back?”

She gasps. “Oh my god! You’re right!”

She opens her phone again, burying into it.

“Did you seriously leave her on read?”

“Be quiet.” She points a warning finger at him. “Don’t think you got out of this. You are going to tell me _everything_.”

Bethany spends the rest of her birthday texting back and forth with Ames, but she gets the confession out of Noam in the following morning. He’d spent the night thinking of how to talk his way out of it, say that they’re only friends and he has no idea about this secret boyfriend business. But one wide-eyed look from Bethany, and he knew he couldn’t lie to her. She knows him too well; she’d see right through him. And there’s a part of him that’s guilty for hiding this from her for so long, especially when he doesn’t know why he feels the need to in the first place. Maybe a part of him thinks that, like a secret, this _thing_ they have will cease to be the moment it’s spoken out loud.

He tells her everything—well, mostly everything. He spares her some of the uglier details, glossing over what happened in the bar on his twenty-first. But he doesn’t water down other parts of it, like how Dara ghosted him for eight months without explanation. And if his voice is a bit bitter when he speaks about that part, then. Well. He thinks has a right to be. 

At the end of his story, she just sips at her coffee for a while with her brows furrowed in thought. “So,” she says, glancing up at Noam besides her on the couch of his dorm suite. “Are you guys… boyfriends?”

Noam bites the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know if Dara would use that word.”

She levels a look at him, Glennis Worry only barely restrained in her face. “Have you talked to him about it? Or… ”

 _About any of it_ goes unsaid. He grimaces, then shakes his head. “We didn’t have a lot of time,” he says. “I will though. I will.”

He tries for a reassuring smile, but he’s sure she sees right through him. Out of some small mercy, she doesn’t call him out on it, just nods slowly and says, “Okay.”

She looks like she wants to say something more, but she doesn’t. Noam wants to tell her that it’s fine, that he has it under control, but the words sound wrong even in his head. He doesn’t have anything under control. 

Because yes, Dara’s talking to him this time, and to anyone looking in they’d seem like a happy couple. But more and more frequently lately, Noam will sit alone after their conversations and the warmth of its afterglow will give way to uncertainty. Unbidden, in the back of his mind, a thought clamors for attention, and its voice is getting harder to ignore. That thought is the sinking suspicion that he doesn’t know Dara at all.

Over the past three months, Noam had thrown his all into this relationship, betting his heart on the magic he’d bathed in while they were together. Slowly, inch by inch, he bared everything to him; he wanted him to know him, _really_ know him. He began with his poverty, his involvement in activism and his subsequent imprisonment, the anger that fuels his every breath. And then he’d told him about Carly, his first love, her deportation and death. Then a month after that, on the anniversary of his mom’s death, he’d broken down over the phone and told him about her, how he hadn’t known. How his father decayed until sickness took him. How Brennan was murdered in his office not an hour after Noam stormed out in the wake of a fight. 

Dara listened intently, comforted him and cried for him, but never pitied him. Noam thought that was enough, thought he’d bet right, even if Dara never offered the same vulnerability. He knows that he has difficulty opening up, and he understands that everyone takes a different amount of time to come forward. But he’s caught glimpses of empty liquor bottles shoved behind couches when they facetime, and he’s never seen Dara eat no matter what time they call. Of course Noam’s asked before, but Dara always deflects. And even if he understands, he can’t help but be hurt.

Worse than all that, though, is that he gets the feeling Dara wishes Noam had never told him about any of it. That they’d remained a couple on the surface, happy and uninvolved. 

Laying in his bed after Bethany leaves, he stares up at his ceiling and flips through his mental catalogue of Dara’s smiles. He’s gotten pretty good at reading them, but still the subtleties elude him sometimes. He heaves a sigh up at the white plaster above. He’s sure Dara can read him like an open book—the man’s practically a mind reader at this point. Once again, Noam’s falling behind. The imbalance tugs at him like a weighted lock.

As if his thoughts summoned him, Noam’s phone rings and Dara’s face flashes on the screen. He snatches up the phone and puts it to his ear. “Hey,” he says.

Dara’s one of the only people his age that calls when he wants to have a conversation instead of facetiming. He facetimes too, sometimes, but for reasons Noam doesn’t know he’ll call early on some days, as if to beat Noam to the phone before he can try to video. 

“Hey.” He can hear his smile on his voice. “You’re free right now, right? You won’t have to hang up to rush to class or anything?”

“It’s a Sunday, Dara. Don’t worry.”

Dara pauses, and then giggles. “Oh God, you’re right. Sorry, you lose track of time after being on the road for so long.”

“Mm, I can imagine,” he says, smiling into the receiver. “Where are you right now?”

“Toronto. I’m going on stage in—” he stops, presumably to check the time. “—twenty-nine minutes.”

“Toronto? When’d you get to Canada?” Noam frowns. He didn’t know they’d be leaving the U.S. at all.

“Um, seven hours ago,” Dara says. “You know, you can keep up with the tour if you’d follow our Twitter.”

He rolls his eyes. “You know I deleted Twitter two months ago.”

“Okay, then Insta.”

“Never had it in the first place.” Noam sighs. And then, because in Dara’s words ‘he can’t ever leave something alone’, he says, “Funny you should bring up insta, actually.”

“What?” Dara’s tone is teasing. “Are you finally taking an interest in, and I quote, ‘money-grubbing capitalist media corporations selling our privacy’?”

“Hey! You agreed with my points!” He sits up, scowling when Dara laughs. “But no, it’s not about that.”

Dara waits. Noam struggles with a way to approach this that won’t devolve into a fight. He doesn’t find one. “Bethany showed me a… certain insta live that Taye and Ames did.”

Silence. In his mind’s eye, Noam can see how Dara’s face shuts down on the other side of the line.

“Look, I know that Taye just says shit without thinking sometimes,” he says when Dara remains quiet. “But your fans are convinced of this ‘secret boyfriend’ stuff, and…”

“And?”

“And I know how crazy fans can get,” he says. Dara scoffs. “You haven’t released any sort of statement about it, to clear the air about this matter or something.”

“Are you telling me to deny it?” Dara says, steely. “Or, what—to _confirm_ it?”

Noam bites back a wince at his tone. “I’m not telling you to do anything. But the tabloids are—”

“The _tabloids_ ,” he bites out. “Go crazy over just about anything.”

Noam knows he doesn’t mean it like that, at all. But still, the words _just about anything_ stab through him, because maybe that’s all that he is. Just fodder for gossip writers to earn their paycheck on. “Okay, but you can’t just ignore this, Dara.”

A sharp intake of breath over the phone. Only after he says it does he realize he’s not really talking about the insta live anymore.

“The rumors will die out eventually,” Dara says after a while. “By themselves. It’s better if I—”

He cuts himself off, a faint sound in the back of his throat echoing through the speaker. Noam holds his breath, the moment constricting around him like a vice. 

“It’s fine.” Dara’s voice is tight and firm, impenetrable. “I’m handling it. Okay?”

Noam breathes out a sigh. “Okay.” 

* * *

Ames: heyheyhey

Me: whats up

Ames: ur bi right

Ames: dara told me

Me: yeah i am. what about it?

Ames: so hypothetically, if im p sure im straight but i maybe might kinda like this cute girl ive been txting with recently

Me: hypothetically

Ames: yes, and hypothetically this girl may or may not be ur bff so maybe me coming to u with this is not a great idea

Ames: but

Ames: if this were hypothetically true, what do i do

Me: what do you mean

Ames: like how do i know i like her? as in you know, wanna touch her and kiss her kinda like

Me: well do you wanna touch and kiss her?

Ames: yes ofc but its her you know. i assumed its a biological reaction

Me: honestly fair lmao 

Me: wait are you asking how to tell if your bi or just gay for bethany

Ames: hypothetically!!! but uh yes to both

Me: well the sexuality spectrum is, you know, a spectrum so its diff for everybody

Me: you can just like her bc its her. sometimes we just fall in love with ppl even tho we dont expect to and thats ok

Ames: ok fall in love is a bit intense but i see ur point. 

Ames: funny thing dara said almost the exact same thing

Ames: oh ew are u rubbing off on each other like one of those gross couple things

Me: he said that?

Ames: yes yes but this isnt abt u this is abt ME 

Ames: should i ask her out

Me: as her best friend i want you to be sure of your feelings before getting together with her

Me: but also as her best friend fuck yes

Ames: okokok so imma invite u 2 to our last concert in la during ur spring break and get u backstage passes and then imma lay it on her

Ames: cool?

Me: wow you thought that out pretty well

Me: yeah that sounds good

Ames: aight imma send u the tickets soon but DO NOT TELL HER im gonna surprise her with em

Ames: thanks man

Me: no prob

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :))


	5. April

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The concert in L.A. that Ames invites them to. Spring break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi this is late am sorry. and it's the last two chapters so you know what that means :) trying to cram too much angst and too much development into too little time.

When the stage lights come on this time, Noam knows to shut his eyes.

He opens them to see Dara’s land on his, and for a moment all they do is stare at each other. Dara looks a bit breathless, his eyes and lips softening; Noam’s sure he looks about the same, mind short-circuiting like that first time he saw him. He lifts a hesitant hand up in a wave, and Dara smiles. Then he breaks his gaze, turning his celebrity stage-face out to the roaring crowd. Behind him, Ames and Taye do the same, though as she’s setting up her bass Ames winks at Bethany. He doesn’t have to look to see how pink she turns at that.

After the venue is full to packed, the show begins. Dara starts with a short speech to get the audience hyped, offering his gratitude and commenting on the end of their tour. Then Taye drums the first beat of the opening song, and Noam finds himself swept away. 

He remains swept away for the duration of the concert, surrendering to the sway of the crowd and the music, Dara’s voice rolling through him. He doesn’t dare sing along, afraid the rumbling of his vocal chords will subtract from the rumbling of Dara’s, but he mouths every word. Imagines that there is no one but Dara and him, that every song has his name in the title. 

At times, and during Nabokov’s Revolution more than any other, Dara will look at him like he’s forgotten the rest of the crowd, and Noam can almost believe his imagination is right. 

In that initial eight month period of silence, Noam went through a phase of obsessively reading his lyrics over and over again. He’d consult discussion forums and parse through everyone else’s interpretation, hungering after a truth he couldn’t name. Dara never reveals the true meaning of his lyrics, something those fans on the forums noted in both satisfaction and agitation. Dara also never writes love songs.

Noam thinks of that fact as he watches him on stage. He is hungering after something still, he realizes as he stares at the bobbing of Dara’s Adam’s apple. But what? A song written just for him to break that streak of Dara’s? No, that’s not right. He can’t say he’s never considered it before, let himself dream like the hopeless romantic he isn’t, but that’s all it is—a fantasy. He can’t even really imagine it. 

Perhaps he is aching just for the certainty of a response to the  _ I love you _ ’s he whispers in his heart. Screams, sometimes. 

After it ends, Bethany drags him to the door that leads backstage, flashing her pass at the security guard along with a cheeky grin. A manager picks them up soon after and leads them to a door with the word ‘Performers’ printed on it. She opens it to a room with a few couches, guitar stands, and the band. 

Ames leaps up from the couch immediately after seeing them and drags Bethany away to, probably, somewhere more secluded so she can ask her out. Taye looks at who he’s left with, mutters a “Oh  _ hell _ no” and leaves with a salute to Noam. All of which barely registers to him as Dara stares at him from across the room. 

He smiles, lifts up a hand. “Hey.”

Dara shakes his head and smiles back, walking until he’s right in front of Noam. He reaches around him to push the door shut from when Taye left and forgot to close it. “Hey yourself, Álvaro.”

He kisses him. Noam smiles against his mouth.

He spends the night in Dara’s hotel room, a luxurious, spacious top-floor suite in downtown L.A. with a cost per night he didn’t dare ask. It was decided earlier in the night when they’d all congregated in the living room area that Bethany would stay the rest of Spring Break with her new girlfriend and Dara would leave with Noam in the morning to go back to the Bay Area. To this, Taye threw his arms up in frustration and said that he’d try to snag himself a girlfriend so that he’d “stop being the third wheel.”

The trip back involves a lot of singing (“Álvaro you are  _ so bad _ , please stop”), talking (“Wow, you can play the kazoo, what an accomplishment”), and comfortable silences (“I know I’m pretty, but eyes on the road, Álvaro”). They grab lunch at In’N’Out, drive-thru since neither of them wanted to risk Dara getting recognized. Noam ends up finishing his cheeseburger for him. 

They check into Dara’s hotel at seven, the same one as before, and Noam ends up staying over again. He leaves in the morning, but only to grab his laptop and some clothes before driving back, finding Dara on the balcony in his purple silk pajamas, headphones on. He has his feet on the edge of his seat and a leather-bound notebook pressed against his thighs. Noam can’t help but think he looks natural like that, in his most basic state. 

Noam slides open the door to the balcony, taking the other seat. Dara looks up at him, considering, then scribbles something down and takes his headphones off, setting his notebook on the small glass table between them and his legs into a criss-cross on the seat.

“What are you writing?” he asks.

“Lyrics,” Dara says. “For the next album. We already have demos, too.”

He taps at his headphones around his neck. Noam doesn’t know anyone else who could make silk pajamas and headphones look like they were sold as a pair. 

“Cool, cool.” He chews on his bottom lip. “Can I… ?”

Dara raises a brow, looking at his awkward gesture towards the notebook and headphones. “Álvaro.”

He winces. “Okay, okay, I get it. Sue me for being curious.”

“My manager hasn’t even heard it yet,” he says, smirking. “I can’t just let outsiders in on this stuff, even if it’s you.”

Noam nods, tries for an eye roll. The word ‘outsider’ rings inside him, though he knows that’s not what he means.

Dara’s smile softens and then fades. He brings his legs up again, but leans them to the side against the armrest, curled up within the chair like a cat. California’s spring sunshine, bright and golden but not hot like it is in summer, turns him luminescent. Noam watches him in silence.

Eventually, he looks back into Noam’s eyes, his smile completely gone. “I have to go back to L.A. to produce and record the new album in a month.”

Noam sits on that information, rolling it around his tongue before he speaks. Dara looks at him with almost-steady eyes, betrayed by a twitch and a waver. “A month,” Noam says finally. “That’s a short break after a tour.”

“It’s my job,” he says, a wry smile on his lips. “The debut album’s been out for almost two years. We all decided that we need to release the next one as soon as possible.”

Noam nods, cotton on his tongue. One month. He didn’t think he’d have him for a long time; he knows what his job entails. But still, he thought it’d be more than one month. “You’re not too tired?” he asks. Dara shakes his head. “Good, then.”

He doesn’t know what else to say. From the looks of it, Dara doesn’t either. So Noam stands up, stretches his arms above his head and smiles. “Breakfast?”

* * *

He’s not sure if the month passes quickly or slowly. Sometimes, he’ll slide his keycard through Dara’s hotel door and think that he’s sure he just did that a few minutes ago, though the last time would be yesterday. But there would also be moments that dripped like honey, so slow he could scoop them into a jar and store them away. Either way, the night before Dara leaves for Los Angeles comes with impatience.

They had gone out to Leo’s pub together earlier in the night, cracking jokes as they got their drinks and then hiding away in a secluded corner table together. It was a completely euphoric couple of hours. Now, standing in the shower of Dara’s hotel room, the euphoria fizzes away and leaves him throbbing like a cavity.

He’s running out of time. No, he’s  _ out  _ of time, only an unrestful sleep until Dara’s on a plane heading to L.A. where he’ll stay until who knows when, and after that he’ll probably go on tour again. And Noam is graduating soon, so who knows what’ll happen after that?

He grits his teeth, squeezing out a bit too much shampoo. They still haven’t talked about it yet, about anything of real importance at all. One month is not a long time, not nearly long enough, but it’s more than what they had before. And it’s taking a toll on them. It’s obvious Dara isn’t used to this; his facade hangs half-on, its height and thickness changing day to day and neither of them can keep up much longer. They laugh, kiss, touch so seamlessly sometimes, like they were made for each other, but the moments where every move is cumbersome and every word hits a pressure point grow more frequent. Each lingers longer than the last, and though Dara seems to have no problem ignoring the cracks, he can’t do the same.

He needs to say something, needs to start pushing. They’re caught, stuck between sea and sand, and with each passing day it becomes clearer and clearer that Dara won’t take a step in either direction. Noam’s prodded before, poked tentative sticks into the fire, but a single look or word reminds him that he should appreciate what he has. That he should be satisfied, that even this much is a privilege. And mostly, that’s true. Mostly, he’s happy.

But Noam has never been the kind of person that could settle for  _ mostly _ —it’s all or nothing for him. He gets the feeling Dara’s the same way, and that this limbo they hang in makes him fray as much as it does to Noam. 

He finishes scrubbing at his skin, closing the shower and stepping out. He catches sight of himself in the bathroom mirror, the hickies left on his neck and chest. His heartbeat throbs in his ears in a way that practically has Dara’s name smeared all over it. He dries himself off, dresses in his sweats and tee, taking one last look at himself in the mirror and inhaling a deep breath.

Like on the balcony the first day of the month, Dara sits against the headboard of the bed with his legs up and his notebook propped on them. His headphones rest on the bedside table; without them he looks almost bare. He looks up at Noam with a smile on his lips that slides off slowly as his eyes search his face, reading the heaviness of his expression. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

Noam stops in front of him. Dara closes his notebook and sets it on the bed next to him, looking up at Noam. “Dara,” he says. “Can we talk?”

He counts one, two seconds before Dara’s expression shutters, those damn walls closing around him as soon as the weight behind Noam’s words fully register inside him. He turns his head so that he’s staring straight in front of him, not looking at Noam. “I would rather not.”

Noam sighs. He had expected that; Dara drawing a line between them he’d been mindful of before, but not now. He can’t now. And plus, crossing lines was kind of his thing, or so his probation officer all those years ago said. God knows breaking into government servers had been easier than this. 

“It’s been a year and a half,” he continues. “I’m sorry, but I can’t wait until the next time you get back from who knows where.”

Dara lets out a derisive huff. “I know. The world couldn’t make you wait.” He looks up at him now without turning his head, eyes peering through his lashes. “Okay. Spit it out.”

Noam gulps, tossing his words around in his mouth, none of them fitting. Dara’s giving him a look that would make anyone wilt. He keeps his eyes on him, gaze steady and unblinking even as Noam’s struggle for words extends longer. 

“What is this, Dara?” he settles on, voice low and rough. “What are we doing?”

_ What are you doing? _

Dara’s eyes never waver, and it is with a crafted voice that he replies. “We’re together.”

“Are we?”

They look at each other for a long moment, then Dara breaks his gaze and darts it to the hickies visible above his shirt collar. “I would say that we are,” he enunciates each word to its fullest. “I would say spending every minute of my time off with you would mean that we’re  _ together _ .”

His eyes capture him again, this time his face fully turned to him. Against the open window, black night backdropping black curls and black eyes, Dara looks ethereal. Not like a nymph or a spirit, but like a cruel god. A titan in the skinny frame of man. “I’m getting the impression you don’t consider us in the same way,” Dara says after a pause.

Somehow, Noam finds words. “I want to.” The memory of those same words  _ I want to _ falling from Dara’s lips in this hotel half a year ago flashes through his mind. “More than anything, I want to.”

“You don’t,” comes immediately. “Not more than anything, you don’t. Everyone says things like that, but all it amounts to in the end is sweet nothings. So just…”

He trails off, shaking his head. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Noam is left speechless for a second. And then anger washes over him. “Is that what this is? You’re afraid I’ll—what, betray you? Leave you?” His voice rises, hands unclenching to sweep in the air. “I’m not the one who fucking left, Dara, eight months without so much as a text—”

“I couldn’t! I  _ told  _ you already, but you don’t  _ listen _ .” 

“You don’t tell me shit! I don’t know anything about you!” he shouts. “I’ve told you  _ everything _ , every shameful fucking thing—”

“Shut the hell up!” Dara’s on his feet suddenly, getting in Noam’s face, his face ablaze in fury. “Don’t try to—to fucking guilt me into this, Álvaro. You have no goddamn right.”

“I’m not trying to—”

“I didn’t ask you to tell me anything,” Dara continues. His voice is scorching like it is when he sings certain songs. “I didn’t ask you for anything, or any of this, okay? I didn’t  _ want it _ .”

“Yeah? Well you’re doing a damn good job of telling me that,” Noam grits out. “If you don’t want me, then why am I here, huh?”

Dara opens his mouth, a lick of fire in his eyes and on his tongue, but no sound comes out. Noam shakes his head, almost stupefied. “ _ God _ , you can’t even say it.” Dara flinches at the venom in his voice. “What are you hiding from, Dara? What are you so afraid of?”

“ _ Afraid _ ,” he spits. “Stop trying to analyze me, Álvaro. You’re always doing that, looking at me like something you need to fix. It’s fucking sickening”

His voice is bitter like oversteeped tea. Noam clenches his fingers, digs his nails into his palms. “I’m not trying to  _ fix you _ ,” he says, more carefully than before. “I’m just trying to get you to let me in. Just a bit. Just enough so that I—so that I know if I can call you my boyfriend or not.”

Dara sucks in a sharp breath. “Well,” he says, emphatic. “Just because you throw yourself headfirst into everything you do, including this, doesn’t mean that I have to too.”

“You don’t! I’m trying to tell you that you don’t!” Noam’s voice rises to a shout. “But you’re not doing—you’re barely dipping your fucking toes in, Dara. Make up your mind and  _ pick a damn side _ .”

Dara’s lips pull back, rage knotting his brows and a fierce glare in his eyes. Noam prepares himself for the feeling of his anger burning against his skin, but it never comes. Slowly, Dara’s brows unknit, and he leans back out of Noam’s space. A flat look comes over his face. 

Something grips at Noam’s stomach and twists. 

“You’re right,” Dara says, tone even like before, but worse. So much worse. “I’ve been hanging on too long.”

He looks at Noam, unreadable once again. Then he turns away and walks to the end of the bed, where Noam’s duffel bag he’d brought at the beginning of the month sits, picks it up. “Get out,” he says, shoving it at Noam.

He doesn’t move, stares at the duffel bag, not comprehending. “What?”

“I said get out.” Dara walks forward and shoves it into his arms. Noam almost lets it drop. “You asked me to pick a side, Álvaro. I just did.”

No. That’s not what he—but that’s what he’d said, isn’t it? He just didn’t think that he’d choose this; the thought never even crossed his mind that he’d get dropped again, not after the second he heard that voice mail months ago. “Dara,” he says, plaintive, desperate, reaching out for his arm.

Dara jerks away, body shifting from Noam and eyes nowhere near his. “Get out,” he says again, voice quieter but no less firm. “And don’t call me again.”

Noam stares at his profile, only a slice of his eye-whites visible at this angle. A thousand words run through his brain, a thousand responses and a thousand emotions and a thousand ways to get him to turn around and look at him again. He wants to scream in frustration, wants to grab Dara’s shoulders and shake him until he understands. Wants to beg him not to do this. 

But when he opens his mouth, he can’t speak. Some ghost moves his legs in the direction of the door, forces his feet into his sneakers at the entrance.

It’s only as he’s opening the door that the ghost leaves. He turns around to the room, mouth opening on one of those thousand things, but it shuts again at the sight of Dara’s stiff back. 

When he leaves, it’s his own will pushing his muscles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-----> go to the next chapter


	6. November

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title drop chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imma preface this by saying im not satisfied with it, but i am at this point way too damn tired to fix it. used a line i really liked from the novels, couldn't resist. sue me.
> 
> it's from electric heir, you'll know it when you see it :)

Six months.

Six months to the day since they broke up, Noam walks home to the apartment he shares with Bethany. It’s small, rented from a kindly old lady that didn’t need the money and offered them an almost stupid good deal once she heard they were still studying. They’d been apartment hunting more as a way for Bethany to get Noam out than anything serious, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.

And plus, it was a welcome distraction. Having to move in and arrange his finances around to pay his share of the rent each month took his mind off of things for a while.

He strolls along a now familiar sidewalk in one of the few moments of downtime he has, counting the streetlights as they pass, slipping through pools of orange. Noam likes to count things—steps on stairways, tubs of icecream in an icecream parlor, books on a shelf. Growing up with limited belongings, he’d spend hours cataloguing everything in his house and rubbing his fingerprints all over them. Dara had brought it up with him once when he’d caught Noam counting his moles, a teasing smile on his lips.

This memory of him only hurts partially. He counts that as improvement.

Six months, and not a peep from any of Dara’s social media accounts. His fans are growing worried, some fabricating theories and spamming him for answers while others try to reassure them that he’s only busy with the new album. But Taye and Ames, who are working too, are as active as ever; Taye even started a YouTube channel which he co-runs with Ames and posts random challenge videos every week. Neither of them have said anything on Dara’s condition, only asking their fans to lay off.

Noam had deleted most his social media, so he learned of this through accidental eavesdropping. He’s not proud to say that he’d been vindictive, almost satisfied when he first hear it. Good to know that he wasn’t the only one affected by his decision—and that brought him certainty. Solidity. Confidence he didn’t really have at any point in their relationship. 

When he gets back, Bethany is working through packs of dried seaweed bought from the local Chinese supermarket (the cheap prices were worth the judging glances) while watching a show on their old T.V. He sits down next to her, snags a pack and pops open the wrapper. “What’s this?”

“Hm?” She turns to him, and he gestures to the television screen. “Oh. I don’t have a clue.”

“Is it interesting?”

“Meh,” she says, shrugging, crumpling a sheet of seaweed into her mouth. “I put it on ‘cause Priyanka Chopra’s in it.”

Noam nods, absentmindedly watching the show with her. Since starting med school, Bethany had the habit of coming home after grueling days of class or tests and watching random things on Netflix that she never remembers the plot of. While snacking excessively. When their schedules match up, Noam will join in and the next day they’ll try to piece together what they’d watched through their hazy memories of it.

They get through anywhere between half and two-and-a-half episodes—he’d zoned out in the first five minutes—before Bethany speaks. “Ames texted me today.”

Noam raises a brow. They’re dating, they text everyday. “Yeah?”

“She wanted to pass a message to you.”

Bethany’s looking at him with a wariness about her eyes. Noam watches as the actors on screen embrace, cliches falling from their lips that he reads in the captions unconsciously. “What’d she say?”

“She wants to talk to you,” Bethany says. “She asked me to ask you if that was okay.”

Noam doesn’t know what to say to that. He  _ wants  _ to say no, because he worked so hard to forget, to stop thinking about him. But always, always some hook grasps him and drags him back at the second of release. “She didn’t really strike me as the type to ask permission,” he settles on instead.

Bethany levels a look at him. He sighs. “I don’t want to, B.”

“I understand.”

She hasn’t asked him yet. He showed up at her dorm room that night, probably past twelve, and she’d taken one look at his face and kicked her roommate out. She’d rolled up her sleeves and made her specialty Glennis Sundae, a monstrous pile of icecream and fudge, and let him sob into her shoulder the whole night. Even then, she never pried. 

Still, he can read her worry as clear as day, has seen it consistently in her eyes over the past six months. He looks at her now, with eye-circles and messy hair but focused like she’s taking a test. He sighs. “You understand but you don’t agree.” He gives her a rueful smile. “You think… you think I should talk to her.”

She nods, a shallow dip of her head, teeth worrying at her lip. “I don’t know what she wants to talk about,” she says. “And I know whatever it is, you don’t want to hear it, or even see her, but…”

“You think it’ll help.” His voice is low, almost hoarse. “Help me heal, or whatever.”

She nods again, carefully. “I think…” She purses her lips. “I think you would regret it later if you didn’t do this now.”

Noam’s hands curl into fists on his lap, fingernails carving moons into his palms. He waits for the bite of it to fade before he says, “I’m fine, Bethany.”

He glances over, ready to push out a fake smile to sell his fine-ness. He stops when he sees Bethany’s face laden with sorrow. 

“Oh, honey,” she whispers.

He turns away. On screen, the actors have progressed to making out passionately, and Noam gets the urge to turn it off, throw the remote at it.    


He’s not fine. Of course he’s not, but he’s pretending he is and it had almost been working, and he was going to  _ be  _ fine if he kept it up a little while longer. Then this comes along.

In that moment, he hates everything—Ames, Bethany, Dara, his own unshakeable memories. He wants to punch something; he wants to press his face into a pillow and scream. But he looks at Bethany again, her sorrow and worry, and remembers that night he’d shown up tear-stained at her doorstep. Staring at the last scoop of sundae on his spoon, he’d told her how fucking ironic it is that after all this time, the one person he wanted to stay more than anything wasn’t taken from him by death, but left out of his own volition.

Sitting on the couch in their small apartment six months and a should-be healing later, he nods. “Okay,” he says, voice crackling. He clears his throat. “Okay, I’ll talk to her.”

“Really?” Bethany’s face lights up immediately. “Are you sure?”

He gives a weak nod. “Yeah.”

“O-okay, great! I’ll tell her.” She beams at him, reaches over to pat him on the arm. 

Around fifteen minutes later, sitting on the edge of his bed and staring at Ames’ name on the screen of his vibrating phone, he regrets agreeing. This is a bad idea, a downright _shitty_ idea—why had he ever said yes? Because he felt bad for Bethany? Or because he’s a masochist, can’t resist bludgeoning himself against the dull blade of Dara’s presence in his life. The lack of. 

He releases a frustrated growl, and jabs at the accept call button with a thumb, pressing his phone against his ear. 

Silence. He wonders if saying nothing at the beginning of phone conversations is a thing these best friends do. 

“... Hey, Noam,” she says, a badly crafted positive tone in her voice.

“Hi, Ames.”

“...” Noam waits for her to speak for a good while. “So… how are you?”

He bites his lip in irritation at the pleasantries, but releases it with a sigh. She doesn’t deserve his anger. “Busy. How bout you?”

“Oh—yeah, busy too. Producing an album is hard work,” she says, laughing nervously. “I just got back from the studio, actually.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.”

Silence again. Noam imagines Ames pressing her lips together on the other end, and the look of anxiety on the confident, outgoing person he knows her as. He doesn’t know if the image is funny or sad. 

Finally, she mumbles, “God, I didn’t think this through well enough.” In a louder voice, she sighs and says, “Look. I’m not—this isn’t me trying to, like, intrude or meddle or anything. I wouldn’t do that, okay?”

Noam presses his lips together for a moment, casting his eyes up to his ceiling. “He doesn’t know you’re calling, does he?”

“... No,” she says.

He lets out a breathy laugh, shaking his head though she can’t see him. She continues, “Look, Noam. I don’t know you too well, and honestly I have no obligation to be—be—”

“Going behind your best friend’s back to talk to his ex?”

“ _ Yes _ , though that’s not how I would put it.” She seems to chew on the next sentence. “I just think we all owe you at least a warning. Both Taye and I agreed on that.”

“A warning?” He furrows his brow, leaning forward unconsciously. “For what?”

“That’s where this gets a bit difficult,” she says after a brief pause. “I can’t tell you.”

He stares incredulously. This time, he doesn’t bother biting back the frustration in his voice. “Let me get this straight, you’re trying to warn me about something, say you owe it to me, but I don’t get to know what you’re warning me about?”

“Sums it up, yeah.”

“Ames,” he grits. “Do you see how little sense that makes?”

“I  _ know _ , Noam. But there’s just—I just  _ can’t _ , okay?” Noam wonders if that’s another thing with them, saying  _ I can’t  _ like it’s a catch-all explanation. “Just, tomorrow something will be happening that warrants a warning. Just know that.”

In the back of his mind, Noam counts four times she says ‘just’. He wonders if that means they all cancel out, or if they exponentiate each other. He doesn’t know how to react, to accept it with composure or yell at her to stop being so cryptic. But before he can formulate a response, she speaks again.

“Look,” she sighs. “I gotta go now. But—tomorrow, okay? You got it?”

“No I don’t got it, what the hell do you even—”

She hangs up. Noam stares dumbly at his phone screen, gaping. He barely resists the urge to throw it across the room. 

He spends the rest of the night pacing, turning her words over and over in his head. A warning. God. Did she have to make it sound so damn ominous? How was he supposed to get any sleep after that, or focus tomorrow at all? Jesus Christ, what is it with musicians and being so inconsiderate to Noam’s feelings?

When the clock turns twelve, he snatches up his phone and opens it, waiting for something to happen. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting—on top of not telling him what would happen, Ames didn’t tell him when it would happen either, and he’s willing to bet that if it doesn’t come now, at midnight, he’s going to find out about it in the middle of something important tomorrow and lose focus even more. Because the world seems to like fucking with him right now.

Nothing happens. He gets no notification, no text or call; he’s left just staring at his phone for a solid three minutes willing something to appear. Finally, he throws his phone on his bed in frustration, resolving to take a shower and go to bed and put this out of his mind until it comes. Before plugging in his phone, though, he opens his chat with Ames and sends her a single middle finger emoji. It does nothing to sate his anger.

He manages to get some sleep, though it’s restless and he feels like he hadn’t at all when he wakes up in the morning. Bethany doesn’t ask him why he’s so gruff over their cereal breakfast, and he suppresses the need to make petty passive-aggressive comments about her girlfriend, shoveling away his irritation and slinging his backpack over his shoulder. 

He slogs through his classes, barely retaining the information, though he still manages to type out notes on autopilot. He doesn’t have his internship today, a small mercy so he can deal with whatever else the day has in store for him. It seems to him that he holds his breath for hours, a tight iron clamp squeezing his temples and straining his ribcage. 

As the day stretches longer and nothing continues to happen, his frazzlement peaks. Then, painfully reminiscent of finals week, he reaches a point at about one p.m. where he achieves calm, a peace derived from the acceptance of futility. Whatever happens, happens. Still, a sour memory his body can’t forget, the uncertainty needles at him.

He curses Dara, curses the moment he’d agreed to take Bethany to that damning concert in San Francisco his junior year. Now, a few days shy of two years later, he’s still chasing the boy he met that night. Grasping, fingers closing over nothing.

So when he hears those girls talking as he exits the last class of his day, the afternoon sun radiant on autumn leaves, he doesn’t flinch. He isn’t shocked, isn’t taken by surprise; he feels the realization of  _ oh, it’s here _ settle in his bones like silt on a riverbed. 

“Guys, did you hear The Fever King’s new song?”

“What? They released it already?”

“Yeah, they just uploaded the video. No warning or promotion or anything, like, they just fucking dropped it! And oh my  _ god _ it’s so fucking good, like  _ so good _ , I fucking cried when I first heard it.”

“Oh my god—wait, okay, okay, I found it—”

Noam doesn’t hear the rest of the conversation, walking briskly away and pulling out his phone. He finds a text from Bethany sent some time during his last class, with only the words ‘Noam, I think you should see this’ and a link to a YouTube video.

He grips his phone tight and presses his tremors against it, stuffing it in his pocket and speedwalking to the parking lot. Something tells him he should see this in private. He clenches his hands over the steering wheel, teeth gritted against the shaking of his body. 

In his head is a drumming, flooding down his spinal chord and into his nerves, and he wants it  _ out _ , wants it far away from him. He presses his foot on the gas pedal, cursing his own eagerness.

When he gets to his apartment, Bethany still away at class, he dumps his backpack at the entrance and goes to sit on the couch. He pulls his phone out, thumb hesitating a centimeter above the link for a second before he presses it. The drumming gets louder as the video loads, and then drops out completely when he reads the title.

The Fever King - Noah’s Ark/take me with you

A memory flashes across his mind: Dara curled up against him on the hotel bed over a year ago, a thoughtful look on his face.  _ I think you’d suit the name Noah _ . He hadn’t thought about it in ages. 

On screen, Dara, Ames, and Taye stand with their instruments on what Noam realizes with a jolt is the stage of the live music bar in San Francisco he’d first saw him at. Dara takes a moment to send a small smile at a crowd he can’t see or hear, a quirk of his lips so organic Noam aches. He’s wearing a loose linen shirt and no makeup, so like how he’d looked like in his hotel room. 

Dara meets the eye of his band members before turning to the crowd, his eye catching briefly on the camera in a way that sparks through Noam. “Hi,” he says into the mic, another of those smiles on his lips. “I’m Dara Shirazi, singer of the band The Fever King, and…”

His gaze slides to Ames, who gives him a nod and a smile. They slide back, fixing on the camera again, staring directly through the screen of Noam’s phone. “This is a love song.”

He strums the first chord, Ames and Taye falling seamlessly into tune. It’s quieter than most their other songs, a steady beat and humming bass, almost muted notes plucked on Dara’s electric guitar. His voice wraps around the mic, floating in the most comfortable reaches of his register, tender. Soft.

This song is so soft. 

Dara sings, eyes closed, stray curls brushing the edge of his lashes.

_ Noah, when you build your ark _

_ Take me with you  _

_ Save me a seat _

_ And when the world floods around us, _

_ Let me kiss you  _

_ In the rolling sea _

_ Noah, when you rebuild the world _

_ Take me with you _

_ I’m on your team _

_ And when the people ask you to save them, _

_ Come save me too _

_ Be my release. _

He sings like the song is inside of him, and he is merely letting it breathe. And maybe it breathes through Noam, settling in his lungs and his windpipe, because by the end of it, Noam is breathless. He stares at the frozen picture of Dara’s smile, half obscured by the replay button. With a shaking finger, he presses it, rewinding the video back to its beginning, catching Dara’s eye as he looks at the camera. As he looks at  _ him _ . As he says the words “This is a love song”, as he strums the first chord. 

Bethany finds him there in the evening, hunched over on the couch with his face in his hands, his phone playing the song on repeat besides him. Wordlessly, she sits next to him and wraps her arms around his shoulders. He leans into her touch.

Salt water makes his hands sticky as he pulls them away from his face, a steady trickle tracking paths down his cheeks. She rubs his back, presses a kiss to the side of his head.

“He’s such an asshole,” he says. Whispers, really. “Such a fucking asshole.”

“Mmm.”

“How dare he. How dare he just—”

He chokes, breaking off, biting his lip against his blurred vision. He shakes, silent sobs wracking his body as he sinks into Bethany’s arms and Dara’s voice in the background. He doesn’t know how long they stay there until his shoulders stop trembling and his tears dry on his face, but somewhere in that time Bethany had reached over and pressed pause on the song. It still plays in Noam’s head over and over again, accompanied with his memories of Dara.

When he’s sure his voice won’t break again, he says, “I’m still in love with him.”

Bethany gives him a small, sad smile. “Yeah,” she says. “I know.”

* * *

A week passes, and it’s Thanksgiving Break again. Noam’s life continues as usual; he goes to classes, goes to his internship, goes home. Nothing changes. Dara doesn’t call, doesn’t text, still doesn’t post anything on his social media. 

Noam is dangling, spends time staring at the blinking cursor in the message box under Dara’s name. He doesn’t press. The urge had been pressing at first, but then he’d just gotten pissed. Why the hell should he have to be the one to reach out? Dara had ended things on his terms, no explanation, no response to the calls and texts Noam had sent those initial weeks. One song doesn’t fix shit. 

Even if it was a good fucking song. And that was part of the problem—the song had gone viral, shooting to the top of the charts, which meant Noam couldn’t go a day without hearing it at least twice. There seems to be a cult of The Fever King groupies on campus (“It’s called a fanbase,” Bethany corrected once. Or two, three, four times) that would not stop blasting the song and sobbing over Dara. A few of his classmates who know he likes their songs have started discussions about it with him, which is the kind of awkward situation he never imagined he’d be in.

So yeah, he’s  _ pissed off _ . 

Was it supposed to be a gift to him? An apology? He’d lost too much sleep rewatching the video again and again, picking apart the lyrics, resorting to scrolling through those fan forums once more and feeling sicker at each gushy speculation he read. It isn’t a breakup song; there wasn’t a hint of heartbreak in his voice. No, it’s a love song, a fact those fans couldn’t seem to get over. Nothing more and nothing less.

Noam wonders what it says about Dara that the only times he can be truly honest with his feelings is in a drunk dial and a song released for millions to hear before Noam himself does. 

He scowls at the microwave as he reheats leftover scrambled eggs and hash browns from last night. Bethany had insisted on going to Waffle House for dinner, citing her period cravings and the beginning of break. She’d received a text halfway through and promptly left, saying something about an appointment she forgot she’d scheduled with someone. She said she wouldn’t be back until the next evening, so Noam’s left eating the half of her dinner she didn’t finish for his breakfast.

For once, he has nothing to do. He finished all his coursework while trying to distract himself from his Dara problem, and his internship is on break for Thanksgiving. He and Bethany planned to spend today bingeing Game of Thrones, which neither of them have watched yet, but obviously that wasn’t possible now. And she’d kill him if he watched it by himself. 

Maybe he’ll stop by the local bookstore, pick up some novels he hasn’t had the chance to read yet. Yeah, that sounds good.

The microwave dings. Before he can open it, a knock comes at the door. He sighs, abandoning his food and trudging over, expecting a package of something Bethany ordered or Bethany herself, forgetting something for her appointment and without her keys since he’d driven them last night. Instead, he swings open the door to find Dara standing on the other side.

He freezes. Dara seems to do the same, wide-eyed in his coat and jeans, cheeks and nose flushed from the wind. The sight of him in the flesh, his gaze on him directly and not through a phone screen, electrifies him. 

Dara’s the first one to regain his bearings. “Hi, Noam,” he says, a small smile on his face at odds with the complicated emotion in his eyes.

“Dara,” he responds. He’s glad his voice comes out even. “This… is a surprise.”

Dara grimaces, fidgeting with a button on his coat. “Yeah. I suppose I should’ve… texted or something, before…”

“Before showing up at my door.” Noam crosses his arms, leaning against the doorframe. “After six months of radio silence.”

Dara glances up at him, meeting his eyes before looking away again, anxious. Noam stands there, lets him squirm as he thinks up an answer. There is a part of him that wants to fold him in his arms and crumble, but there’s another part, one that’s louder right now, that says he can’t let him off that easy. “Look, can I—can I come in?” he says, looking up at him.

For a brief second, he considers saying no. Letting Dara be the one to get turned away this time. But there’s something frantic about his face, about the way he drinks him in in small glances, as if he’s afraid looking at him too long will crack the moment, and—of course—Noam holds the door open.

Dara looks relieved. Noam thinks he’s the only one of the two that believed there was a chance Noam would close the door. 

He gestures to the couch, and Dara takes his coat off before sitting, setting it over the arm. Noam’s suddenly conscious of how he’s still in his pajamas as he sits down next to him. For a few seconds, Dara doesn’t say anything and Noam, sensing the pattern of tense silences before important conversations, decides to start it off. “You know, I’m pretty sure there’s some unwritten rule about not writing love songs for people you dumped,” he says, toeing the line between teasing and accusational.

Dara flushes. Noam catches himself before he can stare too long; Dara’s not the type to get embarrassed easily. He interlocks his fingers on his laps. “I wrote the song before I broke up with you,” he says. “So. Not exactly.” 

“Really?” He’s surprised; he never considered that before. “On tour?”

Dara nods, mouth tightening into the idea of a smile. He’s looking at Noam, eyes not steady but not shifting away. 

“So,” Noam says, leaning back. “I guess the imperative action here was releasing it.”

Dara pauses, then nods again. His eyes continue to search Noam’s face, and Noam’s do the same. He looks tired, he notes. Jet-lagged, he would say, except there’s no time difference between L.A. and the Bay Area.

“Why are you here, Dara?” he asks. His tone is softer than he thought it would be, but it rings in the silence of his apartment. 

His gaze bores into Noam’s. He holds his silence for another long moment, then says, “I missed you.”

Noam sucks in a sharp breath.

“When I… when I broke up with you, I’d been thinking about it for a while,” he continues. “I thought it would be better. Or,” he huffs out a breath. “ _ safer  _ to let you go.”

“Was it?”

Dara gives him a rueful smile. “In some ways, yes. But I… I had that song stuck in my head, humming it under my breath without realizing, and I just—” He breaks off, shrugs his shoulders. “I couldn’t write anything else before I had it recorded.”

Noam swallows against his dry mouth, his heart pounding dully in his ears. “Dara,” he says, voice low. “If you… why all this? Why couldn’t we just have—”  _ been together. _

He doesn’t say it, but Dara seems to understand anyways. A darker look passes over his face. “It’s not that easy, Noam,” he says. “I can’t be like you, always so sure of yourself. Always so eager to help, even if that means giving up parts of yourself.”

Noam doesn’t know what he means. It sounds like Dara’s saying a lot of things at once, in too little words. “I’m not asking you to give anything up, Dara,” he says, leaning forward to get a better look at his face. “You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not comfortable with, but at least tell me the things that have to do with me. With  _ us _ .”

Noam reaches forward and rests his hand on top of Dara’s. He stares at it, still, before flipping his palm up and interlacing their fingers. He’s still staring at it when he answers. “I know, and I’m—that’s why I’m back. I want to try.”

Noam waits. Dara wets his lips, searching around for the right words, the right thing to say. He sucks in a deep breath, exhales, and then turns to face him fully.

“Do you remember what I said to you in the hotel the first time you came over? The night after we met in the bar.” His eyes are looking straight into his. “I said that this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Noam nods. By now the memory was old, but he still remembered it clear as day. 

“There was a period of time where I wasn’t sure if I would wake up the next morning. Where I didn’t  _ want  _ to,” he says. Noam’s hand clenches tighter around his, body leaning forward unconsciously. He had figured as much from his songs, but to hear it was a different matter entirely. “I always thought that people like me, we didn’t get to love. I never even considered that it could happen.”

Noam doesn’t dare speak, but he begins rubbing his thumb over the back of Dara’s hand in soothing circles. Dara looks down at them, lets out a strangled chuckle. “I said… I said I wrote that song on tour right?” Noam nods. Dara looks up again, a wry twist on his lips. “The first tour, Noam. I wrote it on the  _ first  _ tour.”

Noam blinks, not understanding for a second. When the meaning of his words sink in, his eyes blow wide and his mouth falls open. Dara chuckles again, a painful thing. “Not the whole thing, that would be pretty creepy. But the melody,” he says. “The idea—Noah’s Ark. So, you see?”

Noam was finally starting to think that he might. Dara doesn’t wait for a response, leaning forward and saying, “You  _ terrified  _ me.”

All the breath leaves his lungs in one swoop. “Dara,” he breathes. “I didn’t—you don’t have to be—I would never hurt you. You know that.”

Dara shakes his head. “You would never try to, but it would still happen. It has.” Noam swallows against the pain that sent through him. “So I put distance between us, but that hurt too, but I couldn’t be too close to you because…”

He swallows, presses his lips together. Noam urges, “Because?”

“Because you would hate me,” he says in a rush. “Once you saw me,  _ truly _ saw me and not—not the stage me, or the me that spends all his time reading books and listening to music… once you saw how fucked up I am, you’d hate me.”

“ _ No _ , how could you—why would you ever think that? I could never hate you, Dara.”

“I know that. I  _ knew  _ that, in my head. But still, I couldn’t…” he trails off, shaking his head. “I’m not a good person, Noam.”

“You are,” he says.

“No, I’m not. I’m not as amazing as you think I am.” He stares wide-eyed into Noam’s, imploring him to understand him. “I’m  _ weak _ , Noam. I’m not—I’m not whole.”

Dara’s voice breaks, his breath coming in shallow. Noam bites his lip. He wants to put his arms around him, press kisses into his hair until he stops looking like that. Like he’s tearing himself apart. But he doesn’t, because Dara is still scrambling together words, still trying to convey something to him. And for all his popularity as a songwriter, Noam gets the feeling he wasn’t used to being listened to. 

“My whole life,” he begins, voice brittle and crumbling. “My whole life, people have done things to me that I couldn’t—that I didn’t—” He breaks off, water gathering in his eyes. When he speaks again, his voice is as quiet as a whisper. “I can’t break anymore, Noam.”

Noam watches him, the trembling form of a man with the force of a titan within him, and every bit of him aches for him. He lifts his free hand, trembling too, and cups Dara’s cheek in his palm. “You’re not broken, Dara.”

Dara stares at him for a moment, something slackening in his tightened features, and then he surges forward and kisses him. His hands come up to wind around his neck, and Noam lets his own grasp at his waist. The kiss is achingly familiar, a cavity filled, a broken clock finally set to the right time. It’s different, too, pulsing with something more desperate, more urgent than before. 

When their mouths part, Dara says against his lips, “You deserve someone better than me.”

“That’s a damn tired cliche. I don’t give a fuck, okay? I’m choosing you.”

Dara lets out a breathy laugh, and winds his fingers through Noam’s hair. “God, I love you.”

It’s the first time either of them have said it to each other, in those three, simple words. Noam knows he will cradle this moment within him for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, if you made it this far, my full gratitude to you! thanks for reading this incredibly self-indulgent fic. rockband aus deserve more love.
> 
> EXTRA:
> 
> "Oh, fuck."
> 
> "What?"
> 
> "When Bethany finds out we got back together, she's gonna play that song nonstop."
> 
> Dara laughs.


End file.
